


A Study in Ariana

by vesuviannights



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Blindfolds, D/s, Dom/sub, Edging, First Kiss, First Time, Forbidden kisses, Foursome, Masochism, Multi, OT3 + 1, Orgasm Denial, Period Sex, Spanking, Virginity, pain play, two gals being the gayest they have ever been and disgustingly in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21731134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesuviannights/pseuds/vesuviannights
Summary: A collection of mostly explicit fics about my apprentice-assassin, Ariana Haventhorne. These span a range of different canon-divergent and alternate universes, and feature a range of characters.
Relationships: Julian/Apprentice, Julian/Apprentice/Nadia, Lucio/Apprentice, Nadia/Apprentice, Nadia/Apprentice/Julian
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	1. Joint Canonverse (Nadia/Julian/Laurel/Ariana, Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> This is an ongoing collection of fics involving my apprentice, Ari. Some of it takes place in a joint canon universe with [queenofeden's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofeden) apprentice, Laurel. Some of it takes place in random AU universes we have contrived together, also involving [thesanguinerose's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesanguinerose) apprentice Rory (and sometimes also Riley). It's basically just the result of us vomiting at each other and me loving the babeys too much to handle so I had to write about it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since being resurrected at the hands of her master, Vesuvia's Assassin Ariana Haventhorne has been slowly spiralling under the weight of what she does and a past she can't quite remember. After a pained discussion with her best friend, Ariana is approached by Laurel, Nadia and Julian who have a proposal to help her work through the emotions and trauma she keeps trying to bury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore more about my apprentice Ariana, specifically exploring her submissive and masochist sides as she has begun to struggle morally and emotionally with the work she does as an assassin since being resurrected. 
> 
> I was blessed enough that queenofeden allowed me to borrow her own apprentice Laurel (as well as the rest of her OT3, Julian and Nadia) to help with this, as it required characters Ariana knew and trusted to get her through. 
> 
> In this, Laurel and Ariana have a joint canon which combines their best friend backstory, the Nadia and Julian endings, as well as Lucio information peppered in.

It used to take her forty minutes to wash the blood from her hands.  
  
Forty minutes to think over what she had done, to remember the look in their eyes as her target had taken their last breath.  
  
Forty minutes to still her heart, soothe her aching bones, and find herself again.  
  
Now it only took her five.  
  
The morning she realised she had come back wrong, she was standing in the washroom, head bowed as she worked at the grooves of her knuckles and nails. When she looked up, it was still dark, and dawn had not yet broken.  
  
Dawn always broke when she cleaned her hands. _Dawn always broke_. Being surrounded by darkness when she returned home and taking long enough to talk herself down that she was bathed in the mornings glorious night…it was how she knew she was still human. How she soothed that small part of herself that still couldn’t handle taking another person’s life, even if they were as vile and cruel as they all were.   
  
Dawn always broke.  
  
But that morning it hadn’t, and she had felt a tightness in her chest as she had flinched away from the window and thumped against the wall. As she had tried to clear her vision and hope that the dawn was there, she just wasn’t seeing it.  
  
But all that greeted her was pitch black.  
  
There was no dawn, and her hands were clean, and for the first time since she had begun taking lives, she felt that pit stir in her stomach, dark and unfamiliar. Questioning who she was and what she did.  
  
How many dawns had she missed without noticing? How long had she been so uncaring, so indifferent to what she did?  
  
The world spinning, she had dropped to her knees and dry heaved into the toilet, the motions only stopping once the light of the sun begun flickering through the window. The sight had soothed her, stilled her heart.  
  
When she heard Lucio stirring in the next room over, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and slipped out the window, taking herself to the highest roof of the palace where she couldn’t be found.  
  
And there she had stayed, well into the day, her mind a mess of blood and retribution.  


*****

  
The two friends sit just outside a small stall in one of the city’s quieter streets. A few people are lingering around, but aside from the merchant and their young daughters, there are few people around to disturb their silence.  
  
Ari prods at the pastry in front of her, head cradled in her hand. There are dark purple shadows under her eyes, and the few words she had actually spoken since they had met on the corner had been slow and quiet.  
  
It doesn’t take long for Laurel to look up from her tea, spoon half submerged in the act of stirring in the honey.  
  
“Yana?” She asks softly.  
  
Ari shakes her head at the name, then pushes her hair back from her face in one long sweep. She tries to push a smile onto her face, but it fades almost as quickly as it comes, too wry and dry and cracked.  
  
“Lore,” she returns, just as softly. Laurel doesn’t miss the teasing tone there, or the fact that it’s there to cover up for something.  
  
“Have you not been sleeping?” Laurel asks.  
  
“Oh, I’ve been sleeping.”  
  
“Did you sleep last night? The night before? And before that?” Ari glances off. Laurel makes a triumphant little hum. “Then you’re not sleeping.”  
  
“It’s hard for me to sleep when I work at night and my best friend wants to meet for tea and pastries during the day.”  
  
Laurel _hmphs_. “That’s hardly an excuse. It’s nearly the afternoon. You had all morning to sleep.”  
  
The two regard each other silently, though it’s more Laurel silently attacking Ari and attempting to beat her into submission.  
  
If Laurel were any other person, Ari might have broken an arm, or flipped her off, or found a creative way to use her pastry to shut her up permanently.  
  
The unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, truth of it was that Laurel would never receive that special treatment. Ari would always give into her.  
  
“I killed a merchant a few nights ago,” Ari explains, eyes down. “I came back when I always do. But it was still dark when I finished. I…” She trails off. “I washed my hands too quickly.”  
  
Laurel places a hand over hers. Ari’s eyes flicker up, and she has to swallow the lump in her throat at the tenderness she sees there, the patience.  
  
“It’s fine,” Ari murmurs, shaking her head.  
  
“It’s clearly not.”  
  
“I’ll sleep tonight, I don’t have any jobs.”  
  
“The sleep isn’t the problem. How long has this been going on?”  
  
Ari pauses, but all she can come up with is a shrug.  
  
“You’re worried,” Laurel sighs. “That you’re not clean. That you need to make up for what you do?”  
  
“Don’t I, though? I’ve never hesitated to kill the corrupt but some tiny, hidden part of me has always known murder is still murder.”  
  
Another silence falls between them. Ari’s temples have begun to throb, part from the sleep and sunlight but mostly from the talking, part from having to think of and explain her feelings when all she wants to do is hide and hope everything comes back right in a few nights time when she has to go out again.  
  
“We’re not the people we used to be,” Laurel says quietly. “We’re not meant to be.”  
  
Laurel’s hand is still closed over Ari’s, and the warmth is enough to settle the uncertainty in the assassin’s chest.  
  
“I know you’re always encouraging me to talk about my feelings,” Ari says, after a moment. “Or…do things that aren’t punching things. Or picking fights at The Raven. Or fucking about it.”  
  
“But…?”  
  
Ari exhales, a little harder than usual and exactly as hard as she meant to. Laurel just smiles, perfectly sound in the knowledge that she’s on the very small list of people Ari would never murder for pushing things like this.  
  
“I spent the whole morning on the roof trying to figure out why it didn’t bother me anymore, or how long it hadn’t bothered me for. In all the time since Asra and Eli brought us back, with everything that happened with the arcane and Valerius…I’ve never had this feeling. I feel wrong. Like I don’t deserve to be back here. Like I’m not paying for my sins anymore.”  
  
In the silence that follows, Laurel tilts her head. When it’s clear that those are all the feelings Ari is willing to give over, Laurel speaks again.  
  
“Have you spoken to Lucio about it?” She asks. “You know he would want to help.”  
  
Ari’s answer is immediate, almost cold.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Asra, maybe?” Ari doesn’t respond. Laurel lets out a low whistle. “That’s also a ‘no’.”  
  
Ari looses a breath, feeling the last of her patience slip.  
  
“This was a stupid idea,” she says, but what she means is _I’m sorry I brought it up_. She shakes her head, turns her hand up and squeezes Laurel’s quickly before standing. “I’ll pay for the meal on my way out.”  
  
Laurel folds her arms, lips pressed together. “Remember what we talked about?”   
  
Ari rolls her eyes and when she turns back, she has a sly, easy grin pushed onto her face.  
  
“Don’t get into carts with strangers who offer me puppies?”  
  
“That isn’t a proper goodbye,” Laurel says sternly, completely ignoring the joke. “It’s okay to have feelings.”  
  
“Why would I need feelings to say ‘goodbye’?”  
  
“I don’t know, you tell me.” Laurel crosses her leg over her knee and continues to stare Ari down. “Say it.”  
  
“Say _what_?”  
  
“Say goodbye.”  
  
“This is stupid.”  
  
“Yana.”  
  
Ari glances off, sucking on her canine with her tongue. A few moments later, she grumbles under her breath.  
  
“Sorry?” Laurel asks. “Sorry, what was that? I don’t speak mumble.”  
  
Ari flashes a grin. “I said ‘fuck you’.”  
  
“Mmmm, no you didn’t.”  
  
Ari pushes her hair from her face to hide the shake in her hand, bunching the white strands in her fingers as she digs in her pocket for coins. She places two gold beside her glass, then lets her gaze lift back to Laurel.  
  
“I have work to do,” she says quietly, as close to a _goodbye_ she’s ready to give.  
  
And then she’s gone, a shadow in the street in broad daylight.  


*****

  
A few days pass. She has only been out twice more under the cover of night, but each time she’s returned she has timed her hand washes and forced them to last until the dawn. All it really accomplishes, rather than more time for her to think about her deeds, is an excuse for her to come back later and later to lessen the time between her arrival and daybreak.  
  
Each morning she has climbed into bed with Lucio well after she normally would, and he’s noticed, pulling her close with a frustrated sigh and a kiss to her shoulder. They’ve fucked more than they usually would too, even with the mornings already being their favourite time. Lucio begins his day with the taste of her on his lips and Ari ends hers by releasing the last of her pent-up energy, Lucio suckling on her neck and leaving pretty little bruises until she dozes off.  
  
Late Friday evening, she’s walking through the palace in her training gear when Nadia’s voice calls to her. She turns to find the Countess waiting with her hands folded in a nearby doorway. She gestures for Ari to step in with her, and the assassin follows with a curious frown.  
  
Inside, Nadia makes her way to a lounge set in the centre of the room—and on the lounge opposite sit Laurel and Julian. Ari’s step slows, almost to a complete halt, as she tries to assess the situation. Julian and Laurel are seated beside each other, hip pressed to hip. Julian’s lip is rolling between his teeth, a light flush to his cheeks. Laurel’s fingers are rolling against his thigh.  
  
She knows them both well enough to pick up on the nerves, even without seeing their ticks.  
  
“Please sit, Ariana,” Nadia calls, gesturing to the space on the other lounge.  
  
“Actually, I’d rather not.” Ari’s eyes flicker to Laurel, and she’s ashamed to feel a slight sneer curling her lips. “Is this an intervention? Gods, Laurel—”  
  
“It’s not!” Laurel cuts in hurriedly. Her hands are twisting in her lap, her leg bouncing. When Julian places a hand on her knee, she exhales and nods, then gestures to the chase opposite, to the space beside Nadia. “Please, Yana.”  
  
After a moment’s pause, Ari glances to the doorway. She wants very much to leave, but once again Laurel is using her own advantages at full force, knowing Ari would never walk away when Laurel is giving her that look.  
  
And so with a sigh that somehow amounts to fuck it, she crosses the remaining distance and settles herself beside Nadia.  
  
Nadia turns to her with a warm smile.  
  
“Laurel told me you were dealing with some…issues, surrounding your profession.”  
  
Ari’s eyes swing to Laurel as Nadia speaks. Her expression is impassive, but she hopes Laurel feels her burning gaze and knows of her plans to throw her through seventeen walls.  
  
Nadia’s hand comes to rest on Ari’s shoulder. She’s used to it, so she doesn’t freeze up, but she does look to it.  
  
“Don’t be angry at her,” Nadia says. “She loves you. She means well.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Excellent. Then you’ll also know that whomever she loves, we also want to see happy.”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
“We would like to propose something to you.”  
  
Ari’s eyes move back to Laurel. Whatever it is, she somehow knows she needs it to be Laurel who says it. Laurel knows it, too. She reaches over to squeeze Julian’s knee, but her own is still bouncing and her other hand is fidgeting.  
  
“We think,” she starts, a little rushed in her words. “Nadia thinks, but Julian and I both agreed…that maybe what you do need is to ‘fuck about it’.”  
  
Ari frowns. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean…” Laurel rolls her lip between her teeth before releasing it. “You said you wanted to find a way to work through your feelings. You won’t talk. Fucking Lucio isn’t working. But we could help. If you let us.” She swallows. “All three of us.”  
  
Ari stills for a moment. She knows the details. Knows how it works. Knows there’s no other way to take Laurel’s words.  
  
Nadia’s hand on her shoulder squeezes lightly to get her attention.  
  
“Submission can be an excellent way to work through stressful feelings. You spend all your time asserting control over the world around you and always having to watch for things, always having to be careful. Involving yourself in that type of act can be a wonderful release.”  
  
“Also,” Julian says, speaking for the first time. Ari’s gaze locks with his, and it’s a battle not to look away at the care she sees there. “It’s well-researched that it can help people work through traumas like survivors guilt, or to begin associating positive experiences with the negative ones they’ve been through.”  
  
“I don’t have survivor's guilt,” Ari growls. “And every single person I slit the throat of deserves to die.”  
  
“No one is saying they don’t,” Laurel says calmly. “But you are having issues with what you do. You know you are. And you used to be able to work through those when you clean up, when you talk yourself down mentally by telling yourself over and over that it’s okay, that someone had to do it…but now it isn’t working. Now you need something else.”  
  
“And as much as I know that your feelings for Lucio are fiercely strong,” Nadia says. “It is not something he can offer you. He is not yet equipped to this kind of labour of love, especially not when he is just only learning to work through his own feelings.”  
  
Ari swallows, part to give herself a few moments and part to try and swallow back the rising tightness in her throat and chest. The burn that reaches a little further than she cares to admit.  
  
“I won’t cheat on him,” she says. “I won’t leave him.”  
  
“We don’t mean for you to,” Laurel assures. She reaches forward and takes Ari’s hand, squeezing it between both of hers. “Talk to him about it. He will understand, even if he doesn’t like it. It’s not about him, or what he can and can’t provide for you. It’s about you and making sure that there’s still enough of you there left to love. For all of us to love.”  
  
Silence. Ari’s eyes are on Laurel’s hands. She’s never felt so vulnerable and protected in her life. Maybe not even in the few memories she has of her parents.  
  
“I…” She trails off, has to swallow again. Her eyes swing up to Laurel. “How would it work?”  
  
“However you need it to,” Nadia says. “But because I know I am the least familiar to you, I think I would just be there to support. Laurel and Julian would be who guide you through it.”  
  
“They would be in charge of me?”  
  
“In a way. But only to an extent that you feel comfortable with. We can set up guidelines and boundaries, and a coded system or safe word.”  
  
She still wasn’t sure, but it was becoming harder and harder to claim the tightness in her chest as fear. Something inside of her wanted this, was curious, wanted to be free and not in control in the ways they had claimed she could be. To atone for what she had done in a way she could no longer achieve herself.  
  
But most of all, she wanted to be loved. Reassured, by her best friend and by one of her closest companions, that she was still worthy of being loved after all she had done. After all she would still do, because no part of her knew how to switch that side of her off.  
  
“Yes.” She barely hears herself say it. She looks up to each of them, before her gaze moves back to Laurel. “Yes. I want to try it.”  
  
Laurel smiles and squeezes her hand. Nadia’s hand slips to the crook of her elbow and follows suit. Finally, Julian’s curves around her knee, and she has to look off and swallow to stop her eyes from stinging, or her tongue from lashing out to distract from it.  
  
“Talk to Lucio,” Laurel insists. “Tell him what you need. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”


	2. Joint Canonverse (Nadia/Julian/Laurel/Ariana, Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since being resurrected at the hands of her master, Vesuvia's Assassin Ariana Haventhorne has been slowly spiralling under the weight of what she does and a past she can't quite remember. After a pained discussion with her best friend, Ariana is approached by Laurel, Nadia and Julian who have a proposal to help her work through the emotions and trauma she keeps trying to bury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the porn.

A week. That was how long it had taken for Ariana Haventhorne to fully admit that she did have a problem that needed facing, and which she did need help with, and that she needed to bite down on her tongue and listen to that small part of herself that was still fighting against it.  
  
Lucio’s reaction had been…miffed. Perhaps a little too still for the moments it took for him to process what she told him. She had thought him ready to stand and leave, or to try and convince her that he himself could help.  
  
She had blinked when he kissed her on the forehead, when his hands had only shaken a little when they closed over her knees and squeezed. It was a testament to how far he had come, how far they had both come, when he had told her to do whatever she needed to do, and to never feel like she needed to ask permission to search out parts of herself.  
  
The next day, he had left the city on business, and she had approached Nadia, Laurel and Julian to confirm what they were doing. They had discussed boundaries, safe words, expectations. Things had felt overwhelming at first, but when they had assured her that they would be reminding and helping her throughout, she had settled and felt ready.  
  
They had chosen a neutral space for it, with Nadia having the servants prepare a guest room in one of the higher floors of the palace. The Countess sat in an ornate armchair in the corner, completely bare save the waterfall of hair covering her breasts and falling about her hips.  
  
Julian and Laurel are the same way, naked and bared to the world. Ari however, had been gifted a set of clothes: a sheer black robe, a laced corset with matching underwear, and a pair of patent black heels. Her hair is out and falling down her back, with Laurel standing just to the side and pulling her fingers through it.  
  
“Are you okay?” Laurel asks, soft. Ari nods. “Remember your colours.”  
  
“Oh…green. I’m okay.”  
  
Laurel smiles and she looks to Julian, who’s also beaming in approval. Ari flushes a little and ducks her head to try and hide it; she’s done nothing and they’re beaming like she has hung the sun, or called the stars, or done even something small to be proud of.  
  
“Head up,” Nadia calls. All three snap their heads to look at her. She’s smiling, warm and patient. “Remember to keep your head up—in all manners of the phrase.”  
  
Ari frowns, gives a slow nod. Then she looks back to Laurel and Julian.  
  
“Shall we start, then?” Julian asks. He places his hands together in front of him, looking almost thrilled. Laurel nods, then turns to look at Ari.  
  
“We’re going to give you some instructions,” she starts. “Simple ones, nothing that should make you uncomfortable, but if it does then you need to tell us, hm?”  
  
Ari nods. Laurel’s eyebrows pull down, an almost-glare she has seen many times but not quite like this.  
  
“Use your words,” Laurel says.  
  
_Oh._  
  
“I understand.”  
  
“Perfect. Undress for us.”  
  
That one is easy enough. Ari has never been bashful about her body, not even around Laurel or Julian, which has probably been more embarrassing for them than her, but they’re used to her brashness by now.  
  
She shrugs off the robe and steps out of it, then begins to undo the laces at the front of the corset, where the shadow of her cleavage and a line of skin is peeking through.  
  
“Ah ah,” Julian tuts. “Slowly. We’re looking to be entertained.”  
  
It slips out before she can stop it, and while she’s still undoing the laces at her normal speed: “Because I’m absolutely a performance monkey.”  
  
Julian’s eyebrow cocks. Laurel tuts under her breath. Somewhere behind her, Nadia lets out an amused laugh that’s laced with something not-so-nice.  
  
And a moment later, Ari remembers that she’s supposed to be holding her tongue.  
  
So she does just that. While Julian leans down to whisper in Laurel’s ear, and neither of them take their gaze away from her, she takes her tongue between her teeth and slows her hands to a stop.  
  
“Did we tell you to stop?” Laurel asks. Or snaps.  
  
“Is this just going to be three hours of you being your usual, bossy self?” Ari snaps back.  
  
Laurel’s grin spreads a little wider, and Julian stops murmuring and straightens. Laurel takes a step toward Ari, slow and smooth, until their chests are brushing.  
  
“If you’re lucky,” Laurel murmurs. “It will be much longer. Get down on your knees.”  
  
Both of Ari’s eyebrows lift.  
  
“Did I stutter?” Laurel asks.  
  
Ari exhales, taking care to control it.  
  
“No,” she answers.  
  
“‘No’ what, hm?”  
  
Ari bites down on her tongue again. Julian chuckles.  
  
“I don’t think she’s going to say it,” he murmurs, stepping up beside Laurel.  
  
“Oh no,” Laurel murmurs back. Her gaze flicks back up from Ari’s lips. “She will. But for now, she’s getting down on her knees.”  
  
And she isn’t quite sure what makes her do it, even though she knows it’s the game they’re playing and there are consequences she doesn’t really remember, but she does it. Her hands fall away from the laces in her hands, and she slowly gets down onto her knees. When Laurel is still watching, Ari sits back on her feet, and Laurel smiles.  
  
“Oh, good girl!” She praises.  
  
Her hand comes up to stroke Ari’s cheek, and…she blushes. Feels the warmth spread like wildfire in her stomach. And it’s a battle for her eyes not to fly wide or for her not to scoot backward and away, because it’s equal parts terrifying and thrilling.  
  
Laurel makes a final pleased noise before stepping away, her feet padding along the floor as she moves off to somewhere by the door. Julian crouches down in front of her.  
  
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” He asks, his voice level, perfectly Julian. “The praise? The validation?”  
  
She nods.  
  
“It’s strange,” she says. “I would throttle anyone who dared condescend me but it’s…it’s not like that. That’s not how it feels.”  
  
“Let it in,” Julian tells her. “It will feel just as good as when you give it all up. The trust, the control, the autonomy. You can become ours.”  
  
“I don’t want to be yours,” she answers, barely a whisper. “I want to be me. That’s the whole point of this.”  
  
Laurel reappears then, crouching down on Ari’s other side.  
  
“The point of this,” Laurel says. “Is to help you with your feelings. Hating yourself for what you do is not who you are. Letting us take control of you is a way for you to get out that hate. Let us take it from you.”  
  
Ari nods, though she still isn’t sure. Julian frowns.  
  
“Colour?” He asks, as though sensing the doubt. Ari smiles, her nose crinkling.  
  
“You haven’t done anything to me yet.”  
  
“ _Colour?_ ”  
  
Ari exhales, much too sharply.  
  
“Green,” she says, and then adds with a sickly sweet smile, “ _Sir_.”  
  
Julian lets out a barking laugh, and the results of her language seem to be immediate. She can see the outline of his lingerie shifting between his legs, and her eyes drop down in curiosity.  
  
Laurel is on it immediately, something hard and vaguely sharp pressing in under her chin to lift her head right back up.  
  
“Behave yourself,” she says. “No looking. You have to _earn_ cock. But not today. Today, you’re earning the right to come.” She pauses to hum thoughtfully, her eyes roaming down Ari’s form. “You’re sitting so nicely. Good girl.”  
  
“What do you say to that?” Julian reminds her, rising to his feet.  
  
Ari licks her lips, her gaze still fixed with Laurel’s. “Thank you.”  
  
Laurel lets out a pleased hum before pulling the cane away. It is quickly placed on the chase a few feet away, spread out with a collection of items she had brought over when Julian had been talking to Ari. She shifts her fingers over a few items. Julian leans into her and murmurs. Ari tries to strain her ears to hear what they’re saying, but Nadia clears her throat.  
  
Ari feels herself blushing, and curses herself for it. She shifts her weight and pulls her legs out from under herself, but that too is quickly stopped.  
  
“Stay where you are, darling,” Julian calls back.  
  
And she does. Without really thinking on it, she quickly shifts back, hands in her lap.  
  
“Sorry,” she murmurs.  
  
That gets their attention. They both turn and step back to her, Laurel crouching in front of her while Julian settles behind.  
  
“Tilt your head up,” Laurel instructs. Ari’s eyes drop to her hand.  
  
“What is that?”  
  
“A necklace. Tilt your head.”  
  
Julian gathers her mass of hair in his hands and lifts it from her neck, allowing Laurel to secure what is very clearly a collar with the word _princess_ around her neck. The sight makes her cheeks and chest heat, and it’s plainly obvious for all to see the effect it has on her.  
  
“Mmmhmm,” Laurel murmurs. “I thought you’d like that.”  
  
Once it’s secured, Julian releases her hair, and it falls about her back in a mass of sunlight. She feels him shift behind her, and a moment later his hands are on her hips, guiding her backward.  
  
“Sit down,” he instructs. “Cross legged.”  
  
She allows him to steady her, not that she needs it, as she moves back. She sits down, crosses her legs, places her hands in her lap. Laurel kneels before her and sits back on her feet.  
  
“We’re going to play a game,” Laurel tells her. “And your reward will depend on how well you go. Understood?”  
  
Ari nods. Her eyes are a little wider, her pupils a little more dilated. Laurel smiles, then leans around her a little to speak to Julian.  
  
“She’s a natural,” she says affectionately, then she calls out a little louder, “Isn’t she doing so well, Nadia?”  
  
“Very well, from where I am sitting,” Nadia agrees.  
  
Ari blushes again. And…she thinks she hums, or…or something, there’s a noise in her chest that’s there but not _quite_ there.  
  
Julian’s hands smooth up her bare back, his fingertips catching on the scars there. Her back arches and she sighs when he begins counting the ridges of her spine as Laurel continues speaking.  
  
“Julian and I are going to touch you,” she explains. “Anywhere we please, but nowhere important, and your job is to stay still. You can make noises, but you can’t back chat. Every time you move or speak out of turn, you’ll be punished. Okay?”  
  
Ari nods.  
  
“Yes…?”  
  
“Yes. I—" The pleased approval is slowly disappearing from Laurel’s eyes, and when she turns her head just enough to spy Julian’s face, his is looking the same. Her throat grows tight in near-panic at the thought of losing those looks, and she blurts out, “I understand the game…mistress. Sir.”  
  
Julian purrs and kisses her shoulder blade, and her entire body shivers in pleasure. It’s startling, and like most of the feelings she’s had in the past hour or so, a little terrifying. It’s not so much the person as the act, even though it’s something Lucio has done many times. It’s…it’s the act, and the approval, the praise, as though she were being rewarded, and for something so small.  
  
She wants more of it.  
  
“What’s the punishment going to be, _mistress_?” She asks.  
  
“Ooohoho, _twice_ in the span of a minute, Laurel? My, the work you’ve done already!”  
  
Laurel shakes her head, and there’s a bit of a flush there too, one that says maybe she’s still getting used to the name. Her eyes divert away, over to Nadia.  
  
“Nadia?”  
  
“Yes, my love?”  
  
“What should her punishment be?”  
  
Nadia makes a thoughtful noise.  
  
“We can try both sides: denial or contact.”  
  
Laurel looks to Ari. “Does that sound okay?”  
  
“Aren’t you choosing?”  
  
“Yes, but you have to be comfortable with it. Are you?”  
  
Honestly, she is now, but she knows she might change her mind when it starts. But she’s allowed to, they told her that. She can stop or change her mind at any point.  
  
So she nods.  
  
“Yes. I’m okay with it.”  


*****

  
Twenty minutes. Nadia had been counting.  
  
Twenty minutes of Ari on her knees, seated back on her feet, with Laurel in front and Julian behind.  
  
Twenty minutes of soft little kisses to her shoulder blades and nuzzles into her neck and brushes of fingertips along her thighs, her hips, her lower back. Little whispers to the inside of her elbows and where her pulse jumped in her throat.  
  
Her limbs and body shook with each one, hair a mess about her hips, spilling down onto the floor, falling into her face as she keened and whined, completely blissed out, head tilted back to the sky as Laurel kissed up the front of her throat.  
  
The torture of it wasn’t not moving—that was something she was well practised at—but in not demanding more, in finding her patience to wait, in letting them do what they pleased without knowing what it would be. But mostly, it was in the softness, the affection, the silent and loving way they had brushed against her and showed her exactly what she meant to them.  
  
When Nadia finally calls time, Laurel and Julian move back immediately, leaving Ari to resurface from her mind with a gasp. Her body shudders one last time before her head falls forward, hair hanging in her face and over her shoulders, shielding her from the world.  
  
She’s still, gasping, wide-eyed, a constant stream of _whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck_ racing through her mind as fast as her heartbeat.  
  
“Yana?” Laurel asks, after a pause.  
  
Ari shakes her head in a jerking motion.  
  
“I’m—I’m fine, I’m fine.” She lifts her gaze, swallowing before she speaks. “Was that…was I good?”  
  
“Very good,” Julian replies from behind. “Far more patient than I was my first time. Or even fiftieth.”  
  
Laurel grins, tilting her head as she brushes the hair from Ari’s face.  
  
“Julian _also_ has a thing for praise and being a good boy,” she tells. “But he’s much louder when he isn’t getting what he wants. He’ll sit for Nadia, though; however long she wants, until she’s pleased.”  
  
“And I always am,” Nadia interjects. “That was wonderful to watch.”  
  
And at her words, Ari finds herself blurting out, “Do I get a reward?”  
  
And she…feels like she’s said the wrong thing this time. Not because they look angry, but because of the matching shark grins that Laurel and Julian both adopt.  
  
“I’m…I’m getting a reward, right?” She asks, a little quieter. “I didn’t just sit there for nothing.”  
  
Laurel shifts forward, pressing a finger to Ari’s lips, almost before all of her words are even out.  
  
“Ah, remember your manners,” Laurel murmurs. She leans in even closer, pressing her own lips to the other side of her finger, so close to kissing. Ari breathes out through her nose. “You can have your reward. One orgasm.”  
  
When Ari frowns, Nadia speaks up.  
  
“You will be allowed to have an orgasm, she means,” she explains. “And if you need it, there is a blindfold so you do not have to feel so watched by us.”  
  
“Can’t I just go into the washroom?”  
  
Julian tuts, his knuckles tracing up her spine. She shivers and arches into his touch.  
  
“Oh no no no…” he answers. “This orgasm is your reward, but seeing it is _our_ reward.”  
  
“Well it feels like a punishment.”  
  
“Oh, darling. When we’re punishing you, you will know about it.”  
  
And then he brings his hand down on her bare ass with a crack, just catching her on the hip. She yelps, except it comes out as more of a strangled moan, and she smacks her hand over her mouth to try and cover it but it’s too late. The shark grins have come back.  
  
“We’ll have to explore that later,” Laurel says. “But for now…”  
  
She holds up the blindfold, and after a pause Ari nods and allows Laurel to fit it snuggly over her eyes.  
  
The world disappears, but only through her vision. With her other senses trained, she can hear Julian and Laurel murmuring instructions to each other, about her. Then, she feels their hands in a few different places. Laurel’s are on her knees, coaxing them apart. Julian’s on her hips, holding her steady as he settles her between his legs.  
  
“You’re facing away from Nadia,” Laurel assures her. “It’s only Julian and I who can see you.” Ari nods. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Green.”  
  
And she means it. Perhaps would mean it even more if there was a colour better than green. Because Nadia was right—the blindfold is working. Her hands, which Julian had guided to the inside of her thighs, are steady, she is calm. She is aching, actually, and bare seconds off coming.  
  
She licks her lips.  
  
“You can start,” Laurel says.  
  
So she does.  
  
Julian releases her wrists, and it takes her a few moments but her hands slide down, immediately finding their place. One digs its fingers into her thigh, the other slides two fingers right down her slit.  
  
She jumps and groans in Julian’s hold, bites her lip to try and conceal it. No one tells her not to. She moves her fingers, rolls the tips over her clit, whimpers when they slip inside of her.  
  
“You’re doing so well,” Julian murmurs in her ear. “You look beautiful like this, fucking yourself on your own fingers for us all to see. Aren’t you glad you were so well behaved?”  
  
The fingers on her thigh tighten, and when she begins to drag her nails down, someone’s hand goes to her wrist to stop her, but she’s too far gone to argue about it. She feels herself beginning to crash, her body shaking; she’s not loud when she comes, barely above whispered gasps and sighs. She feels Laurel’s hands on her knees, stroking small circles on the inside.  
  
And then she crashes, shivering and shuddering against Julian. Her hand goes back to dig into his hair, and she hears him whimper at the tug, his hips grinding into her ass.  
  
And somehow…it just fucking eggs her on, and she feels like she could come again, but the moment she tries someone has taken hold of her other wrist.  
  
She groans.  
  
“Ah,” Laurel warns softly. She’s close enough to be whispering into the shell of her ear, a hot little breath that curls around it and sends Ari reeling. “One only. You’ll earn the others when it’s time.”  


*****

  
  
They had taken a small break, then. Nadia had brought them all water and some fruit, but Ari hadn’t felt like eating.  
  
Her stomach was burning, and she was seated with her thighs pressed together and hugged to her chest, her robe draped over her back by Julian.  
  
She was quiet. Thoughtful. Unsure about how she felt.  
  
After a while, Laurel had cleared everything while Julian had settled behind Ari and begun combing his fingers through her hair to braid it back. She had taken a hand to his wrist to tell him she could do it herself, but he had shaken his head and told her he wanted to.  
  
When the braid had been tied off and Laurel had returned to where they were sitting, Ari had agreed to another game.  
  
This one was different, and from the start did not seem like a game at all.  
  
Games were fun. Games, she could win.  
  
This…was not a game. She was on her hands and knees, with her ankles tied loosely together with a soft silk scarf but her hands free. She could easily shuffle around, just not very fast.  
  
“We have some questions before we start,” Laurel says. “Are you okay with us touching you intimately?”  
  
“I…yes.”  
  
“Both of us?”  
  
“Yes, both of you.”  
  
“And we know that pesky hearing of yours could hear a pin drop five streets away, so we’re not going to speak. Is that okay?”  
  
Ari grins mischievously. “Yes.”  
  
“Okay…we’re going to practise non-verbal commands. Julian has a leash in his hand that he has attached to your collar, and he’s going to walk you around the room by tugging on it wherever he wants you to go. If you reach certain points, we mark you down as getting a reward.”

“Like an obstacle course?”  
  
“Not quite, but close enough. We do introduce our ‘permission’ rule here, though. Can you repeat to me what that is?”  
  
Ari rolls her tongue in her mouth for a few moments. Truth be told, she doesn’t remember much of what they told her anymore, because her body is on edge. It’s curious, it’s waiting, it’s craving. Words on her tongue and in her mind seem foreign, but she does find them.  
  
“I’m…not allowed to come without asking?”  
  
“Without _permission_ ,” Julian corrects, with a small tug of the chain. Ari groans, her body jerking slightly toward it. Her thighs brush against each other at the heat. “You can ask as many times as you like, but we need to say yes for it to be allowed.”  
  
“And if I don’t? If I don’t remember to ask or if I come when you say I’m not allowed?”  
  
“We expect that you will.”  
  
“…so you’re doing it just so you’ll get to punish me.”  
  
“No no no!” Laurel speaks hurriedly, trying to reassure her. “No, we’re—Yana, no. We just mean that—"  
  
“We mean that it’s a hard thing to learn,” Julian cuts in. “A lot of these games take patience and practise. If you do come when you don’t have permission, we will punish you, but we’ll also help you figure out ways not to do it next time.”  
  
Ari bites her lip.  
  
“Do you? Come without permission when you play with Nadia?”  
  
There’s a pause. She thinks they’re exchanging looks.  
  
“Sometimes,” Laurel replies. “And we get punished. But they’re not awful punishments. Quite often the punishment is worth it.”  
  
“You’re not giving my loves any ideas are you, Ariana?” Nadia calls.  
  
Ari feels her wicked grin return as she calls back. “Of course not, Nadia.”  
  
“That’s what I thought.”  
  
There’s a bit more shuffling. The chain clinks as Julian moves. Laurel walks about the room.  
  
“Okay, we’re going quiet now. Don’t forget your colours.”  
  
And then Julian tugs on the leash, and she shuffles forward.  
  
It’s…odd. And a little terrifying, being unable able to see but having the skills to sense things but not the range of motion or permission to act on it.  
  
She’s sure he does it on purpose, but Julian almost walks her straight into several chairs or walls, and only waits until the last moment to tug on the leash for her to turn or stop or move.  
  
When he almost makes her run head-first into the oak bed frame, she stops in her tracks and pulls against it with a growl. He tugs back, just as hard, and her world swims when the collar tightens and she temporarily loses her ability to breathe.  
  
This…this she likes, this is familiar, the kind of roughness she’s used to with Lucio.  
  
Her thighs quiver. She hears someone, Nadia she thinks, hum their approval at the reaction.  
  
After what she thinks is five minutes, Julian tugs gently, which means stop. She does, and waits, and then there’s a hand on her ass, smoothing over it and squeezing gently.  
  
And then a finger is sliding down between her cheeks, and she shivers and moves toward it. Julian makes a noise of approval. She waits, breath in her chest, as his finger slips further down and presses at her wet hole.  
  
She whines, immediately pressing back, and he doesn’t tug on the collar which must mean it’s a reward. It means she’s pleased him.  
  
She wants a reward.  
  
His finger crooks inside of her, nice and slow, and it isn’t long until it’s joined by a second because of how wet she is. She hadn’t even realised it.  
  
She hears a happy moan somewhere a little further off, and then the unmistakable sounds of kissing. She lets out a huff at the same time Julian does; Nadia and Laurel must be taking a make out break.  
  
Ignoring them.  
  
Ignoring _her_.  
  
Ari’s cheeks flush, and she stumbles a bit on her hands as she struggles to understand that feeling.  
  
“Oh!”  
  
Julian makes a surprised noise as his free hand catches her to steady her. The chain falls to the ground with a series of clinks, the weight of it tugging just a little more on her throat.  
  
His fingers are still inside of her, slow and crooking and spreading. She arches her back and presses into them.  
  
He laughs, then murmurs for only them to hear, “Do you like that?”  
  
She beams and nods, rocking into his hand.  
  
“Oh and I can _tell_ , dearest. I want it to feel good, because you’ve earned it.” He leans in and presses his lips to the shell of her ear. “I’ll let you come while they’re not looking, but you have to be quiet.”  
  
She nods again, hurriedly, almost whimpers—and again, has to pause to wonder where the feeling came from. Where the noises, so unlike herself, are coming from.  
  
But then a third finger slips in and she loses her thoughts, and she’s shivering all over when his thumb starts rubbing circles over her clit.  
  
And god, she’s close, she’s close, so close—  
  
“Julian!” Laurel’s voice snaps. Julian’s hand pulls away.  
  
Ari whines, her hips moving to try and find him again but only causing her to press back into thin air.  
  
Somewhere to her left, Julian laughs. She feels the weight of the chain shift as he picks it up again.  
  
“Apologies,” he comments from above her, though he doesn’t sound sorry at all. “Laurel, my love – would you care to join us again? I think Ariana is beginning to pout.”  
  
She feels him press a finger into her cheek as he speaks, and a few seconds later the sound of Laurel’s content sigh fills the room, followed by her feet brushing the floor as she comes back.  
  
“Did she come?” Laurel asks.  
  
“Not at all,” Julian answers, sounding proud. “Though she did take the bait and think I was going to let her.”  
  
They both laugh. Ari feels her cheeks heat.  
  
“Mmmmm, what a shame,” Laurel tuts. “Julian, why don’t you try again? Yana – stay still, exactly as you are. Don’t move away from his hand.”  
  
Ari licks her lips and nods, waiting in place as Julian settles behind her. She hears him pass the chain off to Laurel, followed by the feel of his large palms sliding up the back of her thighs.  
  
She counts in her head and tries to still her thoughts. It’s easy enough to concentrate on not moving when she isn’t being touched, but it’s another story to still herself when she wants to push for more and is so used to doing it.  
  
Julian’s hands squeeze the flesh of her ass, just enough to have her tense, and then move back down toward where her thighs are parted. She hears the chain clink as Laurel wraps it around her fist; it tightens just enough to force her head up and keep her from moving.  
  
“I’m going to start now,” Julian tells her. “I’ll use my fingers to try and make you come, and perhaps if you’re doing well my mouth too. Your job is to make sure you _don’t_ come. Understood?”  
  
Ari shivers, and only after a few seconds does she manage a nod. Her breath is held in her chest, lips parted as she waits for him.  
  
“Use your words,” Laurel reminds her.  
  
“Yes sir,” Ari murmurs. “I won’t come.”  
  
Behind her, Julian chuckles.  
  
“Good girl,” he praises, and a moment later she feels his teeth scrape her flesh. She lets out a quiet whimper, barely-there, and he sinks his teeth in a little further.  
  
At her strangled moan, at the shake of her elbows, she hears all three of them hum in unison.  
  
“Maybe you won’t need to touch her to make her come, Julian,” Laurel says.  
  
“Don’t make it too hard for her,” Nadia calls. “We can experiment with pain later. Remember what you’re teaching her.”  
  
“Of course, Nadia,” Julian calls back. “We’ll teach her as well as you taught us.”  
  
And then he begins.  
  
True to his word, his teeth make no more contact with her flesh, and the grip of his hand on her thigh is no more than a light hold. His other hand begins whispering down her skin, a ghost of a touch, causing little goosebumps to spread across the back of her thighs.  
  
She feels his finger circling her hole a few moments later, wasting no time in his plan. He presses against the entrance, a movement accompanied by the noise of her slick as it’s moved around.  
  
“So wet,” Julian murmurs, and it’s praise. “I knew you would enjoy what we were doing to you. You’ve been so good, and that’s why we’ve been praising you so much. Do you like the praise?”  
  
Ari nods.  
  
“Use your words,” Laurel says. “We won’t ask you again.”  
  
“I…” Ari trails off, breath caught in her throat when Julian inserts two of his fingers together and crooks them right into her g-spot. “I like being praised.”  
  
“And?” Julian presses, gently scissoring his fingers apart. “What else do you like? What else have we done that you want to thank us for?”  
  
Her arms shake again when he slips in a third finger.  
  
“Oh! Three already?” Laurel coos, sighs. “Aren’t we lucky? What a good girl, taking so many of Julian’s fingers so quickly.”  
  
Ari’s head ducks, an attempt to hide another flush of her cheeks, but almost immediately Laurel tugs at the chain and pulls her right back into position.  
  
“Answer the question,” Julian reminds her. “Or we might not be so pleased anymore. Use your words to thank us.”  
  
_Oh gods_. Teeth clenched tight, she tries to think of her words, of what she could possibly thank them for. But her mind, the blissfully blank space she had all-too-easily created while Julian had walked her around the room, was much the same and she couldn’t figure out just what to say.  
  
“Would you like help, Ariana?” Nadia calls softly. Ari nods. “Repeat after me: ‘thank you for praising me’.”  
  
Ari swallows, then after a few moments manages to murmur, “Th-thank you for praising me.”  
  
“And ‘thank you for touching me’.”  
  
“Thank you for…for touching me.”  
  
“Excellent. Don’t forget to add their names, so they know exactly who is being thanked. Can you think of something yourself, now?”  
  
Ari gives a jerk of her head, one she isn’t really sure what it means. Behind her, she can feel Julian’s breath on the back of her thigh, so close as his fingers continue to pump in and out of her, curling in on just the right spot. She can hear him cooing and praising her under his breath, but the world is shaking too much for her to make them out.  
  
“I…” She trails off, and Julian chooses that moment to change the angle of his fingers and touch the tip of his tongue to her labia. “A-ah…I…I…”  
  
“You’re not going to come, are you Yana?” Laurel asks, an amused lilt to her voice.  
  
“N-no!”  
  
“It sure sounds like you are.”  
  
“I just—I need—I need a bre— _eak_! Pl—please, just a moment—”  
  
“Ohhh, but Julian is having so much fun! Aren’t you, Julian?”  
  
Julian murmurs his agreement into her, his tongue now circling her hole, lapping up everything that is spilling out from between and beside his fingers.  
  
His fingers are still curling inside of her in slow and torturous movements. She’s breathing, short and ragged, and counting in an attempt to keep herself grounded, but nothing is working. She’s teetering on the edge, and so close, and she won’t be able to stop herself—  
  
“That’s enough, I think,” Julian says, as his fingers and tongue slip from her.  
  
She gasps out, and a moment later her arms collapse from beneath her. She immediately feels the chain go with her, allowing her to press her forehead to the ground.  
  
“Th-thank you, Julian!” She gasps out.  
  
“For what, dearest?” Julian asks.  
  
“For—for stopping.” A warm hand sits itself at her back, rubbing small circles. “Thank you for stopping. And thank you for your fingers. And for your tongue.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” Julian answers. She feels his lips at the back of her thigh, soft and chaste. “Now, would you like to try again? We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”  
  
“I want to,” Ari says. “Please.”  
  
A pleased noise comes from all three of them.  
  
“Very well,” Julian chuckles. “Let’s try again.”  
  
And then, with her cheek still pressed into the floor and her ass pressed into the air, he sets himself on her once more.  


*****

  
The third game. The second had been exhausting to a point, perhaps the second or third time they had edged her, but when she had almost hit number four, something had clicked. She had stopped herself. She had clenched her teeth, and exhaled, and Julian had backed off just a fraction, and somehow they had found that sweet spot together, one where he hadn’t needed to ask and she hadn’t needed to tell, they had just _known_.  
  
When they had hit the sixth time, he had made her ask permission to come, and Laurel had given it, and she had gasped and shivered and clenched around him in what was maybe the most intense orgasm of her life.  
  
When she had come to, Laurel and Julian had each kissed her forehead and praised her, and thanked her for such a beautiful orgasm and being so well behaved.  
  
And she had beamed, and allowed them to praise her, and the thoughts in her head had become near-silent.  
  
Now, they were ready for the third game. This time Laurel looks a little more serious, more sombre. Her bottom lip is rolling in her teeth and she keeps looking to Nadia.  
  
After a few moments of deliberation she exhales and bends down to where Ari is waiting, sitting back on her feet with her hands behind her back and cupping her elbows, as instructed.  
  
“Do you trust me?” She asks. When Ari doesn’t answer, Laurel says softly, “You need to speak. You can’t be silent in this space. Do you trust me?”  
  
Ari frowns. “Of course I trust you.”  
  
“But do you…trust me like _this_? In charge of you? Do you trust me to know what’s best for you?”  
  
Ari doesn’t answer immediately, but then she says quietly, “You always do.”  
  
Laurel nods, then holds a hand out to the side. Julian appears, offering her the blindfold.  
  
This time when Laurel leans down to place it on, Ari closes her eyes and doesn’t argue. A few seconds later comes a tug on the chain at her neck, and she begins shuffling forward on her hands and knees.  
  
It doesn’t take her long to realise where they’re going. They’re moving toward the back of the room, toward where Nadia is sitting. Ari’s movements slow, and she feels a hand at the small of her back, soothing her.  
  
“It’s alright,” Julian says. “Trust us. Nadia won’t do anything you won’t like.”  
  
Ari nods, and keeps moving until the tug at her chain tells her to stop. She sits back on her feet and receives a pat on the head as praise. She leans into it.  
  
“Come here, Ariana,” Nadia says.  
  
Ari lifts back onto her knees proper, and Nadia takes her hand and pulls gently. She feels herself tugged into Nadia’s lap, then manoeuvred so that she’s curled over it, her ass in the air and her hands on the ground to steady herself.  
  
“Thank you Laurel,” Nadia murmurs. “Thank you Julian. You may prepare yourselves now.”  
  
Ari hears them move away. Rustling. A soft sigh. She lifts her head to try and follow the sounds. Nadia’s hand curls into her hair and takes hold of it, just softly, and just enough to turn her head and press it back down.  
  
“Patience, Ariana,” Nadia murmurs. Her hand comes to rest at the back of Ari’s thigh, thumb drawing small circles.  
  
“What are you going to do?” Ari asks.  
  
“So curious, so many questions.”  
  
Ari feels her cheeks heat at the tone, and also at Nadia’s hand creeping higher. Her fingers curl around the back of her thigh, just under the swell of her ass, so that her fingertips are pressing _very_ close to her.  
  
Ari arches her back and presses into them, and unlike when she tried to push her way into Julian’s touch, she wasn’t admonished this time. And she liked that.  
  
“Open your mouth, Ariana,” Nadia commands softly.  
  
Ari parts her lips, just enough to feel the cool air on her tongue.  
  
“Further. And stick your tongue out.”  
  
Again, she parts her lips, just a little more. Her tongue stretches out, just the tip, and when Nadia’s hand tightens on her hair, she somehow knows it means _further_. She stretches it more, until it’s as far out as possible.  
  
Nadia hums in approval. “Good girl.”  
  
Her grip remains tight in Ari’s hair as she turns her head, and Ari feels her cheek pressed against the plush arm of the chair. The velvet is soothing against her warmed cheeks.  
  
Close by, she can still hear Laurel and Julian shuffling. Moving. She’s sure they’re close by each other, though for all her trained senses she can’t concentrate enough to figure out what they’re doing.  
  
“Ariana?” Nadia asks softly. Ari shifts a little to show she’s listening. “I want you to suck on my fingers. Will you do that for me?”  
  
Ari nods once, and immediately feels two of Nadia’s fingers pressing down onto her stretched tongue.  
  
“Wrap your tongue around them,” Nadia instructs her. “Show me how much you appreciate being given the chance to do this for me.”  
  
So she does. She runs her tongue up the underside of Nadia’s fingers before wrapping it around their tips and pulling them into her mouth, suckling gently. When Nadia hums her approval, she takes them a little deeper, her teeth scraping just a little.  
  
“I can’t hear you, Ariana,” Nadia tells her. “I can feel your appreciation but I need to hear it, too. A good submissive always lets their dominant hear how happy they are.”  
  
She has never been a loud person whenever she orgasmed, or anywhere between, save little gasps of surprise and groans of pleasure as things have sunk in or bruises have been created. The noises she had made during their games—the whimpers, the sighs, the cries—had all been unexpected, uncontrolled, and so unlike her. Nadia asking her to be louder, to be more verbal _intentionally_ …  
  
“It’s alright,” Nadia assures her. The hand in her hair releases and moves to the small of her back, tracing small circles. “Just start with small noises. Little hums.”  
  
Moving her tongue and lips back to the tips of Nadia’s fingers, Ari does just that, releasing a soft little hum as she moves down again. She repeats the action a few times, until Nadia’s hand returns to the back of her head.  
  
The next time she takes the fingers in, Nadia holds her there and sends them a little further. Immediately, Ari’s head is swimming, her body thrumming. She lets out a quiet little whimper, and when Nadia’s fingers curl in the back of her throat, she gags but keeps herself down.  
  
“Good girl!” Nadia praises. “Three, two, one…”  
  
She releases Ari’s head, allowing her to pull back with a gasp. Tears are stinging her eyes behind the blindfold, but much like the burn in her chest, they’re making her heady and wet.  
  
She licks her lips and parts them to speak when she hears it: a soft groan, a curse, definitely Julian’s voice. A cry from Laurel.  
  
Skin on skin. _Groans_.  
  
Ari inhales. “Are they—?”  
  
_THWACK._  
  
She cries out, immediately trying to shift away from the pain as Nadia’s hand connects with her left ass cheek. Her hips press forward, and Nadia’s grip on her hair tightens just a little as her hand comes back to sooth the imprint she had made on her ass just moments before.  
  
“How did that feel?” Nadia asks. Her palm is somehow cool, soothing, and Ari finds herself relaxing almost instantly.  
  
“I…” She swallows. “G-good. It felt…good.”  
  
“That is pleasing to hear. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you before, but quite often it is more painful than it is pleasurable if you know ahead and tense because of it.”  
  
Ari nods, she knows this from training and taking hits, never tense up when a hit is coming at you. She can still hear hard breathing in the background, the slow slap of skin on skin. Julian groans.  
  
“They’re…” She trails off. Nadia makes an amused noise. “Why?”  
  
“Why are they fucking?” Ari nods. “Because I asked them to. Because it brings me joy. Because it brings _them_ joy.”  
  
She…she knew all of this. She knew they were all involved, that each slept with the other, but perhaps she hadn’t quite comprehended how it worked. That Nadia could simply instruct them on what she wanted and sit back and watch. That it was as simple as an order and they would follow it, without question, trusting that Nadia knew best no matter what.  
  
_Exactly like she had been doing tonight._  
  
And the thought stalls her for a moment, causing a lump to form in her throat that she has to swallow down.  
  
“Do they enjoy it?” She asks. “Following your orders?”  
  
“Did you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
The answer is immediate, and almost completely without uncertainty. And it doesn’t floor her, and she’s still as sure of it a few moments later, when Nadia’s hand lifts from her ass.  
  
_THWACK._  
  
She hears the next one a moment before it connects, its movement through the air, and she lets out a cry as it makes contact. Her hips shunt forward again for a different reason, grinding against Nadia’s thigh.  
  
“Ariana?” Laurel’s voice calls; between her gasps and groans, she sounds a little panicked. Ari groans and presses back up into Nadia’s hand.  
  
“I’m—I’m fine—"  
  
_THWACK._  
  
_THWACK._  
  
_THWACK._  
  
She whimpers at the final blow, and with it comes her first orgasm. She shivers and shudders quietly against Nadia, held in place by a hand in her hair and a hand at her thigh.  
  
“Normally, I would make you count,” Nadia says, soothing her latest marks. She doesn’t acknowledge that Ari even came, that the evidence of it is dripping down her leg. “Perhaps if we play again that is something Laurel and Julian can arrange for.”  
  
Nadia shifts, and suddenly her lips are against the shell of Ari’s ear, purring.  
  
“Laurel so does love to tease and taunt. I’m sure she will simply adore having to punish you when you lose count.”  
  
_THWACK._  
  
Another orgasm wracks her body in silent shivers and tensing muscles. Tears have started leaking down her face, or maybe they had been there a while, but they’re accompanied by a blinding white-hot pleasure throughout her body that isn’t just her release.  
  
It’s…it’s…she can’t explain it, but the pain, the sting of Nadia’s palm, the scrape of her nails, the building bruises…  
  
Along with the whimpering, the fastening slap of skin-on-skin. Julian is groaning and whining, Laurel is gasping. She’s heard each of them ask for Nadia, but Nadia has ignored them, all her attentions on Ari.  
  
_THWACK._  
  
No orgasm this time, but her head turns, ignoring the searing pain of the tug on her hair to try and seek out the sounds across from them.  
  
“Do you want to see?” Nadia purrs. Her fingers have edged back to between Ari’s legs, pressing and probing gently as she speaks. “Do you want to see how my two loves fuck each other?”  
  
“YES!” Ari gasps out.  
  
Without warning Nadia rips the blindfold off, exposing the world to her once more. Stars explode in her eyes as an orgasm crashes over her without any fucking stimulation, just the pain and the praise and the sight of Laurel bent over the chaise, faced toward her as Julian absolutely rails her.  
  
He’s keening, moaning, his face is red and his hands are shaking. They’re both wearing collars they hadn’t been before, and are blindfolded from the world, and have chains attached to their nipples.  
  
Every time Julian pulls out, she can see a ring secured around the base of his cock.  
  
Ari whines, pushes back into Nadia’s hand.  
  
“Oh, you want more, Ariana?”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“Yes what?”  
  
“Y-yes, I want more. Please Nadia! Please hurt me—AH!”  
  
Another smack, this one leaves deep gouges she can already feel the sting of. She’s crying, tears streaking down her face as Nadia pulls her back by the air, her back arching almost unnaturally.  
  
She grinds her hips forward into Nadia’s thigh as Julian lets out a desperate groan.  
  
“N-N-Nadia! Nadia, please—oh p-please—” He gasps.  
  
“Yes, my love?” Nadia coos.  
  
“Can I please come— _please_ —I’ve been good, so g-good—”  
  
Ari’s world goes white for a few moments when Nadia spanks her again, leaving a matching set of nail marks across her opposite cheek.  
  
“Yes, you can come—” Julian and Laurel both let out relieved groans. “But Ariana must come first.”  
  
Ari lets out a gasp, shakes her head, “Not again, I—I can’t—”  
  
“I believe that you can, Ariana. One more, please. I would love for you to give me one more, like the good girl I know you are. I will give you the pain you need if you give me the orgasm I want.”  
  
Ari screws her eyes shut and nods her head, pushes her hips forward into Nadia’s thigh. Nadia pulls her hair and she pushes her hips back, presenting her ass to Nadia’s waiting hand.  
  
And when it comes down, she _screams_.  
  
The hand that connects is somehow so much harder, a smack of white-hot flame followed by claws that rake down her cheek and along the back of her thigh.  
  
She feels the bruise already forming there, the blood dribbling down her thighs, the white-hot flame, the hardest contact yet and she’s crashing. Coming. Crying.  
  
The tightness in her chest is gone and she can hardly move, going limp over Nadia’s knee as the sounds of Julian’s and Laurel’s pleasures fade into the background.  


  
*****

  
  
An hour later, she is enveloped in the searing heat of a scented bath. The heated water seeps into her bones, her aching muscles, her tight chest. Her head is resting against the side, eyes glazed and distant and down. The washroom is silent around her, the soft light of the candles dancing off the water and the painted walls.  
  
She hadn’t spoken since they had finished, the last noise she made having been the cry from Nadia’s hand that had set off her final orgasm. Nadia had warned her that she might drop, that she might go too far inside of herself after they were done and need help coming out of it.  
  
She didn’t think it had happened, but she knew it was hard to see yourself when you were so far gone. The silence around her was soothing, and her head was, perhaps for the first time, not raging with thoughts of the blood on her hands or how much she had changed since being resurrected.  
  
Her eyes cast down, to her fingers following invisible cracks along the inside of the tub.  
  
She inhales, softly, slowly.  
  
_Deeply._  
  
She comes to life, so quietly it’s almost impossible to see, resurfacing from wherever she had taken herself.  
  
And then her eyes flicker up to Laurel, seated in the chair beside her, waiting for her to return. To be okay.  
  
And she reaches out, taking the hand resting on Laurel’s knee and squeezing it, eyes stinging.  
  
And then she says, with a voice so quiet, so barely there, it’s almost not:  
  
“ _Thank you_.”


	3. Joint Canonverse (Ariana/Lucio)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucio's failed attempts to call Ariana down from the guest rooms lead him to storm up with every intent of telling her off, only to discover at least 12 knives embedded in the doorframe and 1 cramping, dizzied assassin curled up on the bed. After some back and forth, some messy period sex ensues to try and help curb the cramps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say, I'm feral and I wanted them to have period sex because you absolutely bet they'd fuck after a fight, too. 
> 
> This is set somewhere around the midpoint fuckery of the joint canon universe with Laurel, [queenofeden's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofeden) apprentice, but not much knowledge is required of the intricacies except that it somehow combines Nadia's route with Lucio's.

Every month. _Every gods damned month,_ three days wasted in bed when she should be out in the city hunting. Time spent wishing she was covered in one kind of blood when she was forced to endure another.

She always joked about the Gods punishing her for having such short bleedings by lifting the amount of pain she suffered within those three short days, and this month seemed to be the one determined to prove all other theories inconceivable.

Her bleeding had taken her by surprise this month, too early or too late she didn’t know, too caught up in the mess of what was going on around her. Trying to fix, trying to stall, trying to find.

She supposes—as she curls in on herself at the foot of the bed, near disappearing in her tangle of hair and sheets and soft moans—that she should count her blessing. Her bleeding might very well not have come at all this month, or the next, or the next, and that thought was something far worse than any pain she had to endure in the present.

*

The staff scatter as he stalks through the palace corridors, and if he weren’t already seeing red at the level of disrespect he had been shown then he might have stopped to scream at them for being so useless at the one simple task he had ask them to complete.

Go to the guest rooms.

Bring Ariana down.

 _That was all he had asked_ , and yet in the entrance hall he had remained for over an hour, dressed for his day and short one whole assassin. The servants had returned one by one, pale faced and quiet. One had even returned crying, a quivering fucking mess while her friends had gathered around her and thrown accusing looks at him, as though _he_ were the one who had caused such a reaction.

_Useless fools, the lot of them. How dare they—how dare **she** —_

The guest room comes into view, and with no preamble he pushes his way in, teeth bared already bared in a snarl.

“Would you mind telling me, _Assassin of Vesuvia,_ why you remain here lounging in your guest quarters while we have work to d—”

He cuts himself off, or perhaps she does it for him, with a soft and barely-there growl, one that doesn’t fit her at all and sets off many alarm bells in his mind.

And if that hadn’t, then perhaps the knives neatly arranged in an arc over the doorframe would have. He turns his head and counts them, _one-two-three-seven-nine-eleven._ Nearly her entire supply; certainly one for each of the servants who had returned shaking or crying.

“Ariana?” He asks. The door closes with a click behind him as he eyes her form over.

He’s never seen her look so small, so encased in herself, like she might disappear entirely. Her hair is a dull mess, pooling down the side of the bed and onto the floor, her limbs tucked into her body as though to protect herself from the world, and what he can see of her face is too pale for comfort.

He takes a moment to sweep the room once more, the drawn curtains and the blankets strewn about the floor and the clothes left by the bathroom door, as though it were too much to make it to the hamper. When he spies her beloved short swords—Saeren lodged just beside the handle, Sage wobbling dangerously close to the side of his head—he feels the last of his anger drain, and he sets forward toward the bed.

*

The world is a slur of colours and sounds, spinning around her no matter how tightly she clings to herself. The herbs Asra had packed for her had long since run out and worn off, and the ones she had found through Portia were nowhere near strong enough.

When she hears the door click open, she barely has enough movement in her to grope for her knives, and nothing more than a whisper of a whimper when she realises she has no more left to throw.

She hears him. _Lucio._ Through the fog of pain and nausea, his voice makes every attempt at snapping her back into the world, only to fall far too short.

She hears him again, between slow breaths and dips into unconsciousness. Her name. So soft she’s sure it almost can’t be him, can’t be his voice, he isn’t capable of it. That was why he kept sending servants. That was why he demanded so much of her when she couldn’t.

“Ariana?”

The bed dips with his weight, and a moment later she feels the warmth of his hand on her arm. A snarl rolls from her chest as she shrugs it off, and the cost of her movement is another sweep of cramps that fire off into every nerve of her body.

“Well, if you won’t come out into the city with me—” She feels him shift again on the bed; his hand returns to her body, this time her back. “—then perhaps we could enjoy some _time_ to ourselves here, mmm?”

And when she feels the sticky heat his body pressing alongside hers, she snaps.

In a blur that isn’t entirely her speed, she’s up and pushing against him, legs wrapped around his ankles, nails digging into his wrists to pin him down.

They fall to the stone floor with an aching thud, and the world pops black spots for a few moments as her mind attempts to make sense of the movement after so long spent so still.

“I said—” She hisses, and has to pause again to duck her head. Her arms shake, and she grips onto him tighter. “You need to leave. I said I don’t want to see you.”

There is a dryness to her eyes, roadmaps from hours spent awake when she should have been dreaming. Dark shadows beneath those roadmaps that detail her descent into madness.

Lucio’s own eyes are wide as they take her in, _really take her in_ , in a way he couldn’t have when he had first seen her curled up on the bed.

Because how could he have? How could he have seen all of her, or known all of her, from so far away? If he had, not even he would have been stupid enough to approach her. He would have understood the crying servants, the knives lodged in the door, the mess of the room, and he would have fled at the weakness he saw.

A few moments pass, and she has to close her eyes to still the world. Swirling. Shivering. Things are…waves, when they shouldn’t be waves, and there’s a growing lump in her throat stemming from all her nerves burning at once.

“Kitten.”

Eyes still clenched shut, she shakes her head, murmuring a quiet _mm-mm_. A moment later, she feels his flesh hand slide into her hair, and her elbows quake at the gentleness of the touch.

“You think I don’t want you to be around you, just because you’re bleeding?” He asks. There’s an unreadable lilt there, one she can’t quite keep herself grounded long enough to understand. “I’m no stranger to blood.”

She lets out a dry, shaking laugh. “No, I knew you would try it. Because you’re an absolute moron.”

“Then…?”

She pauses, then gathers all her remaining nerve and strength to push herself from him and to her feet. On unsteady, wavering feet she begins toward the bathroom. Each step is a limp or near, head bowed, hair lifeless and falling about her hips. When she reaches the bathroom door, she feels a brief moment of reprieve, enough to get her through the doorway and to the small step by the sunken bath.

And it’s there that she wavers, just for a moment, but it’s enough—she feels a hand at her elbow, another at her waist. One warm, one cool. Both too gentle, and she flinches away from them as she sinks to the stair.

“Please just leave,” she murmurs to Lucio. Her head drops to her hands. “I need you to leave.”

“And walk in the city alone?”

“If that’s what keeps you from bothering me, then go.”

She hears him chuckle. Then, a flutter of material; she cracks her eyes open to see his cape pooled on the ground, forgotten as he steps up and crouches before her.

On his knees, for her. _Only ever for her._

“Tell me what it is,” he says, quiet enough that it almost doesn’t sound like him at all.

“Fuck off.”

“You need to. Isn’t that what—that other magician, the one who you—”

“Laurel.” 

“ _Laurel_. She gets to tell you this all of the time, and I don’t?” 

“Tell me what? To ignore my own body trying to rip me to pieces and pretend like nothing is happening?”

His face contorts in frustration and dare she say it, hurt. The mild, almost too-distant ache in her chest tells her she was a little out of line, that he was trying his best, but there is so little energy left in her to care.

“To talk about what you’re feeling,” he answers. “Even the things that make you feel weak.”

“I’m not _weak._ ”

“No, you’re not. So why the hell do you insist on scaring my servants, locking yourself away from the world and pushing me away, all for the sake of appearances you don’t even need to keep up?”

Her gaze flickers up, and through tear-clumped lashes she sees him. A Lucio that is not the Count that was burned alive, nor the one who spent three years locked away in his own palace. It is not the Lucio who she travelled the magical realms with, or even the one with who she overcame the Devil’s chains—both the arcane kind and her own.

No. This is none of those Lucio’s, and yet all of them. A Lucio who has been built with her, alongside her, and who has come so far in understanding others and realising they are not out merely to serve or hurt him.

And a Lucio who loves her.

 _Her,_ in all of her bloodied forms, both chosen and natural. A Lucio who is on his knees for her even though he swore never to be for any creature that breathed or saw or thought.

When her vision begins to swim again, and a new torrent of pain begins to pull her under, Lucio brings both hands up. One cups the back of her head, the other settles on her neck, his thumb tracing the quivering line of her jaw. It pulls her back, grounds her in the world, long enough for him to lean in and press his lips to hers, and for her to part those lips and kiss him back with a quiet, shuddering sigh.

The world is quiet—no roaring heartbeat, no aching bones—until a warm palm comes to rest over her abdomen, and it all comes back, with all the grace of a raging forest fire. A low hiss bubbles in her throat, and when she tries to curl in on herself, he allows it. The warmth of his lips finds her ear, where she is only vaguely aware of the _ssshh_ , of the reassuring murmurs, as he scoops her up and moves them out of the room.

“I can send someone for Asra,” he speaks into her hair. His voice comes to her strangely, a little distant at first and then almost too loud. A moment later, the softness of the mattress that makes her aching body sing. “If you need herbs. Or Jules.”

“No it…doesn’t really work this late.”

He makes a thoughtful sound as he hovers above her. She can feel him a bare few inches away, the heat of his body still a little too much, but her throat burning for it anyway. What she wouldn’t give to push him away. What she wouldn’t give to pull him in and keep his hand just where it had been, right on her stomach, attempting to soothe her even though it would barely register.

And what she wouldn’t give to not _need_ to pull him in, to be as strong as she had been every month for the past nine years and not rely on him to simper and coddle her, as though she hadn’t bled and burned from both her abdomen and every limb in her body. As though she had never felt the seer of a broken bone while darting across rooftops during the witching hour, or the blinding sting of a blade as it dug itself into the flesh of her thigh.

“Maybe,” he says to her, now much clearer, now much closer. “I could help you in other ways I know, if you would let me. If you would like. I’m quite the good Samaritan these days, wouldn’t you know.”

Her lips shake as she tries to smile, and fails. Clumped lashes swoop against her cheekbones, and she bites back a groan as he lifts her just enough to pull her mass of hair—undone, unbrushed, it hasn’t seen its typically neat braid in over two days—out from beneath her body, lets it slide from the bed and tickle at the floor.

She’s clad only in a loose tunic, underwear with the lining sewn in, as much skin as she could bare to try and fight the mild fever. He strips her of it all, peels it from sweaty skin with movements of unfamiliar care and leaves it on the ground for the servants to find.

“If you can’t join me in the city,” Lucio tells her, as he begins to strip himself of every layer he gathered to peacock himself to the population. “Then I will just have to remain here, treating you in your illness and convincing you that you’re an idiot.”

A low growl builds in her chest but fails to make it out. “A great way to start, calling me an idiot.”

“What else would I call you? You think that being seen like this makes you look weak. It doesn’t. I’m sure you could still murder anyone you needed to if the emergency came up.”

“It might soon.”

Lucio throws her a wink as the last of his clothes piles on the floor beside hers. She doubts her death threat might have worked even if she had been at full capacity.

“So it’s settled, then,” he purrs, lowering himself back to the bed. He hovers over her, ignoring the seer of her gaze, nuzzling against her jaw when it shakes from a fresh wave of burning pain. “I’ll help you feel better. Soon you won’t even remember you’re bleeding at all.”

The curl of her lip must do something to whatever common sense he has left, or maybe it just isn’t as threatening as she hoped, because the next move he makes is to lower the weight of his body onto hers and kiss her collarbone.

She shivers beneath him, just barely able to feel the familiar burn of arousal beneath the other kind of burn. She exhales through her nose, closes her eyes, tries to focus on _him_ rather than anything else. The roughness of his lips, the squeeze of his fingers against her hips, the weight of his body against her abdomen. The warmth he gives her without even knowing, and in so many forms.

Then come two fingers, swiping through the mess of her between her legs as his teeth move a little higher to find her pulse. Her breath stills in her body as she feels his weight fall to the side, the growing stiffness of his cock pressed into her hip as he gathers more of her on his fingers.

Her lashes flutter open just in time to see him smear it up her stomach in two clean lines, like the scars of a warrior leading from her burning abdomen right up to her heaving chest. A single digit flicks her nipple, puckering it to shine a gruesome scarlet in the rooms dim lighting. Then, still with her breath in her throat, he brings both fingers to her lips and presses them in.

And before she can stop it, a low, guttural groan has bubbled from her chest and into the bare space between them.

“There she is,” he murmurs. His hot breath curls around her ear, the path followed by his tongue and teeth. “My bloody lioness, my wicked huntress—”

And then he’s on her like a wildling, the residual blood streaking against her chin and then her wrist and the sheets as he pins her down. It smears against him where their stomachs meet, and as he nudges a thigh between hers to press against her aching cunt, it covers even more of him, like a bloodied conqueror returned from the heat of a relished battle.

So she does the only thing she knows—fighting back, a writhing and aching body beneath him stirred by growls and barely-there whimpers. Her world is swimming in two ways as he presses her down with the weight his hips, as his tongue cleans the smear of blood from her chin, and then the next from between her breasts, from her nipple, as he makes his way down her body.

Only to place his mouth right to her bloodied, aching cunt.

He sweeps at her with a long stroke of his tongue, the sound near offensive as he dives back in again, and again. Her thighs quiver, weak and aching and yet trying so hard to close around his head, to stop him. Everything hurts. Everything burns. Everything aches. Her throat and eyes sting as he laps at her, as he grazes his teeth with her clit, as he smears the remnants of her own body’s failed attempt at creation all over his face.

And oh, is it a sight. He surfaces with a grin, streaks and chunks of wet and clotted blood across his chin and jaw and cheeks. His lips are stained with it too, and by the dim light she can just barely see it on his teeth, not so much the aftermath of a delicate meal so much as that of a raw, bloodied and feral feast.

“Still think yourself weak, kitten?” He asks, and then gives her no chance to answer before he dives back in, lips closing around her clit and suckling hard.

There is barely enough strength in her muscles to buck against him, to try and throw him off even as she winds her hands in his hair to keep him close. It’s quickly becoming too much—the wet, carnal sounds, the smell of sloppy pennies, the bruising press of his fingertips as he keeps her hips pinned up to his mouth—and she needs—she needs—

“S—stop— _stop_ —I can’t—”

He slips up her body in an instant, his bloodied face and teeth her entire sky as he presses his forehead to hers. A shiver wracks her body as his fingers find her again, sweeping through before slipping in, pressing gently to her sensitive walls. _She knows what is coming,_ can’t escape it as he locks her eyes to his and the burn in her abdomen moves itself to her chest, her throat, her eyes.

“Don’t,” she grits out through clenched teeth. There is a sob, just barely buried in her chest, threatening to break her voice.

“I’m not looking away, kitten.”

“ _Don’t you dare_ —don’t you make me—”

But he does.

He curls his fingers into her, a dip into that perfect spot with aching slowness as his thumb rolls her clit. Never looking away. Never letting her break.

And she tips, her entire body shuddering quietly beneath him as her eyes remain locked with his, wet and wide as she comes apart beneath him in silence gasps and quivers. For five, ten, thirty seconds, or an eternity, her body no longer aches, is no longer trying to destroy itself, burns in a new way.

She doesn’t realise she is crying until he kisses her, warming the damp skin of her cheekbone. A deep, shuddering inhale. A soft sigh. She turns her head away and closes her eyes, nods to him to say that she’s okay.

“I’ll run you a hot bath,” he murmurs. “Stay here. I’ll come get you.”

Dazed, she nods, or she thinks she does. She rolls and curls in on herself, the sheets sticking to the parts of her body where the blood had been smeared. The new ache has settled in her muscles. Her abdomen burns a duller ache than before, and it’s easy to imagine for a moment that it’s beginning to fade.

And as she lays there, curled in on her side, waiting for Lucio to bring her to their bath, she hates it. Hates the weakness of it, the vulnerability. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she hears all the voices she knows telling her to feel, to let herself show that vulnerability without punishing herself for it afterward.

But the voices fade, perhaps faster than normal, giving out to the sounds of the running water from the next room, to the sounds of Lucio’s tone-deaf humming, his footsteps as they grow closer.

To the sounds of her own heart, thudding in her chest, warming her body, telling her that even if she never let that vulnerability through, it was too late. There was no escape.

Not for her. Not from him.


	4. Lion King 2 AU (Laurel/Ariana)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in a universe inspired by The Lion King 2, in which Laurel is Kovu and Ari is Kiara, the two lovebirds share their first kiss on a rooftop while stargazing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The basic notes for this AU is that Ari and her twin Eli live with their parents and their weird adopted brothers Rory and Riley. Laurel (who is the child of [queenofeden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofeden)) is sent by her Aunt Marta to exact revenge on behalf of the family. Laurel is emotionally incompetent and Ari is a ball of sunshine who has never not expressed every feeling she's ever had.

The city beneath them, darkened by the blackout, is still and quiet in a way only dead things are. The stars stretch out above them, impossibly bright in a way neither girl has ever seen in their years upon the earth.

No words have been spoken in…she doesn’t know. Perhaps eternity. Perhaps twenty seconds. As they lay stretched out beside each other, their fingertips brush with each heartbeat, hair twisted above them in opposing halos, two beings of day and night who could never be one.

Too taken by something she has always yearned for but never been able to hold, Ari’s eyes haven’t once left the celestial space above them.

And Laurel’s eyes haven’t once left her.

“I never knew I could love something so much,” Ari whispers, breaking the silence. Her mismatched eyes graze over the sky, wide and wondrous, all the stars in all the heavens reflected in them. “Like it could kill me.”

A discomfort stirs inside of Laurel at her words, an envy she wants no part of over how easily love came to her companion. To love a person, to love an inanimate object, so much so that it felt like it might crush her or consume her. To know herself so intimately that she could confess it aloud, and with such certainty…

Laurel turns her head away, just as Ari’s gaze finds hers. A moment later, she feels a hand wrapped around hers, soft and warm, squeezing tight as though it’s owner already knew her thoughts, her deepest fears.

“Do you think they gaze back?”

There’s a pause before Laurel looks over again. Ari is waiting for her answer, lips parted, expression soft. It’s everything she can do not to turn away.

“They’re stars,” Laurel finally answers.

If Ari hears the sliver of exasperation, sees the faint curl of her lip, she doesn’t pay them any heed.

Instead, she pushes herself up onto her elbow, and then to sit. Hands still locked together, Laurel has no choice but to follow, and the two settle into a new silence, Ari’s knees curled to her chest, Laurel’s half-bent before her.

Silence falls between them once more. Ari’s eyes have begun tracing patterns in the sky, her lips moving in a silence murmur. After a while, her thumb begins to trace against the side of Laurel’s hand, the same nonsensical patterns Laurel is sure she would tell her about, if only she dared to ask.

It is, very quickly, too much.

“I would like my hand back,” Laurel murmurs. “Please.”

Ari gives it without protest, without seeming to be affected at all. Her eyes are still on the sky, and Laurel feels that same ache in her chest, one she has to bat away before it becomes too palpable to ignore.

“It doesn’t matter what you think of the stars,” Ari murmurs to her. There’s a catch to her voice, a deep longing as she smiles and turns her gaze to Laurel. “They’ll stare back anyway.”

And then she winks.

Laurel immediately feels several parts of her stall, her tongue and her lips and her hands and her heart all simultaneously jerking to a halt.

“W-what are you doing?” She asks; she has to try it a few times in her mind before the whole thing makes it out.

“Flirting with you,” Ari answers, and when she grins, she lays her head on top of her knees.

“Oh, uh—” Like cracking glass, Laurel’s gaze shoots to where her hand now rests against her knee, finding little bits of lint to distract herself with. “Thank you?”

“I have been for a while now, but you’re welcome.”

“Why?”

Laurel’s gaze moves just in time to catch the pull of Ari’s brows, though it does nothing to discourage the sparkle in her eye.

“Why…am I flirting with you?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I asked.”

Instead of answering, Ari places a hand on the concrete between them and shuffles closer. Their hips are pressed snug, their shoulders a warmth she cannot ignore. She’s close enough to see the flutter of Ari’s lashes, the way her right eye dissolves from hazel to cerulean.

Laurel exhales, more heat coming to her cheeks. “Did you mean to flirt with me?” She swallows, then in a much quieter voice, “And why are you so close?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” Ari answers quietly. Her chipped red nails come up to brush a lock of hair from Laurel’s face and, somehow, instead of flinching away, she finds herself following the movement with her eyes. Maybe even moving a little closer.

And then close is somehow a little _too_ close, and Laurel swallows once more, lips quivering before she speaks. “Wait, what are you—”

Their lips brush. Warmth blooms against them, the whisper of Ari’s breath as she exhales and Laurel gives a soft gasp in return. Ari’s hand curls into her hair, nails scraping softly against her skin as it rises from the sensation. Ari gives a soft moan and presses in closer, tongue sweeping along the seam of her lips, asking for something Laurel wasn’t entirely sure how to give.

A soft, impatient sigh fills her ears, like the call of a siren, luring Laurel to her death. And maybe, being called by such wicked lips, drowning in eyes that somehow reflected both the raging seas and the skies above them, that was exactly how Laurel was destined to go.

It’s at this thought that Laurel finally begins to move. Tentatively, so uncertain, she lets Ari guide her in her first kiss, parting her lips to allow her warm tongue to slip into her mouth and taste. It sweeps through her, tracing teeth and tongue and lips before pulling back out, drawing Laurel’s own tongue with it.

A low whine escapes Laurel’s chest as Ari begins to suckle on her tongue, her hand still curled so innocently into her hair, pulling her no closer, pushing her no further, just holding her in place as she teaches her all she can.

Eventually, when Laurel is sure her soul has left her body, and her knees have given even without her standing, and the taste of Ari’s lips have been seared into her memory, Ari pulls back and allows her a breath.

Dazed, eyes lidded, Laurel cannot manage much more than a murmur, another question to place on the list. “What was that?”

“A promise.”

Ari presses herself to her feet, and with those same raging eyes, that glorious curve of her mouth, offers a hand Laurel to her feet. She takes it—against all the gods and the heart in her throat, she takes it—and rises to her feet. Ari gives it a single squeeze and then turns away, toward the roof access door. No backward glance. No uncertain step. Just exactly who she had always been, unaffected and unchanged.

And somehow, _somehow_ , Laurel finds her tongue and her feet and her heart and scoops them all back up into her arms, clutches them tight to her chest, before following after her.


	5. Lion King 2 AU (Laurel/Ariana)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in a universe inspired by The Lion King 2, in which Laurel is Kovu and Ari is Kiara. This is their first time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The basic notes for this AU is that Ari and her twin Eli live with their parents and their weird adopted brothers Rory and Riley. Laurel (who is the child of queenofeden) is sent by her Aunt Marta to exact revenge on behalf of the family. Laurel is emotionally incompetent and Ari is a ball of sunshine who has never not expressed every feeling she's ever had.

Ari is on her stomach on her bed, reading, when she feels something brush at the back of her knee. Her eyes freeze on the words, and her lips quirk as she feels it brush again, this time a little higher, but not by much.

A few seconds pass, nothing more, the fingertips lingering in the same place. They’re tracing a word. She catches an  _ L.  _ The  _ O.  _ And then the fingers slip away.

She closes her book slowly, smooths a palm over the cover, rolls onto her side to spy Laurel with her hand falling back to the mattress. Her bottom lip is between her teeth. Her cheeks are flushed. There is an electricity in her eyes, a wonder and enthusiasm, a desire to explore and please.

Ari’s heart jumps to her throat, and she pushes herself up to slide a hand along Laurel’s neck and into her hair. Laurel’s eyes drop to Ari’s lips, lingering just out of reach, and when Ari smiles Laurel does too. 

They kiss, slow and soft, just enough to keep them alive and remembering the taste. It wasn’t hard to predict the patterns they moved in; Laurel’s enthusiasm had gone from barely there to an ocean thirst since that first kiss, always touching, always seeking, and Ari sometimes had to stop and remember how to breathe when she thought about it. 

How much space Laurel had inside of her heart to roam free and do whatever she liked. Not just a compartment, but the whole thing and well beyond, into every nerve of her body. There was nothing Laurel could ask for that Ari wouldn’t give.

Ari pulls back, Laurel’s lip between her teeth. Ari releases it with a soft hum and murmurs against it, “Is there something specific you need, baby?” 

Ari kisses the corner of Laurel’s mouth, waiting for her to find the words. Ari knows she has enough time to kiss Laurel’s jaw, kiss her pulse, to crawl forward until Laurel has fallen backward and she is above her, curtains of blonde hair around them. 

“You,” comes Laurel’s quiet answer. “Just you. Like always.” 

Ari’s fingers trace constellations on Laurel’s bare thigh as she speaks, encouraged by the tiny little kisses peppered along her collar bone, by the soft breathes blown along the wet kisses on her neck. Ari could spend hours here, and definitely had, just kissing and brushing and suckling on Laurel’s pulse. Always touching. Always feeling. Always loving.

Laurel’s hand cups Ari’s thigh and brings it between her legs, Ari’s knee butted up against her bunched skirt. With an appreciative moan Ari’s tongue sweeps deep into Laurel’s mouth, her thigh meeting the damp heat of Laurel’s pussy, the brunette releasing a soft whine against Ari’s lips.

Ari grins. “Does that feel good, baby?” 

“Mmmhm.”

“Yeah? Is this what you wanted?” 

Laurel nods hurriedly and begins to rock her hips against Ari’s thigh. As the slow, soft moans build in Laurel’s chest, Ari’s slips her hand under Laurel’s blouse to cup her breast, squeezing it over the bra. Her lips play on Laurel’s neck, leaving deep bruises that leave Laurel whining and shuddering from just the right amount of pain. 

And then Laurel’s hands close over Ari’s wrists and guide them to the hem of Laurel’s shirt. Ari has to pull back to pull it off - doesn’t miss the disappointed sound Laurel makes when she does - but she’s back a moment later, lips to the swell of Laurel’s breast, kissing down the valley as Laurel’s heart beats rapidly beneath. 

When Ari’s teeth scrape, Laurel shivers. So then she bites, just a little harder, just to see what it will do. Laurel makes a sound beneath her, one that’s entirely new and foreign and which leaves her a little uncertain - Laurel has never made  _ that _ sound before.

Ari rises to push the hair off Laurel’s forehead, to check what it means, when her hand is snatched and pressed to Laurel’s stomach and further still, sliding down to the warmth between her legs. Laurel’s lips are parted, shaking. Her lashes are fluttering against her cheekbones. She lets out a soft, breathless moan.

And in that moment, she looks like everything Ari has ever wanted. Every star she has ever longed to touch, every thought about the end of her life she has ever had. The universe in soft sighs and stormy eyes. Her moon and stars. The home of her heart.

The world returns when Ari feels her fingertips brushing along the hem of Laurel’s underwear; finds Laurel’s eyes open and fixated on her, asking.

“Do you want more?” Ari murmurs.

“Please,” comes the soft answer.

“Are you sure? I need to know that you’re sure.”

Laurel nods, her head tilting to kiss the wrist pressed beside it. “Please, I—I want _you._ I want you to take me.”

Ari nods, her eyes softening at Laurel’s words. “Tell me if you want to stop.” 

Ari’s fingertips slip from Laurel’s underwear, and the little whine Laurel gives is enough for her to feel maybe a little guilty as she shimmies down Laurel’s body. She gently parts Laurel’s knees and settles between them, hands smoothing over the insides of Laurel’s thighs. 

Ari’s fingertips curl against them as she speaks. “Do you want my hand or my mouth?”

“Maybe—maybe just your hand?” 

Ari reaches up to take a pillow, places it under Laurel’s head, and then settles back. Ari hooks her fingertips carefully into the hem of Laurel’s underwear, eyes locked as Ari tugs them down and off, and then still as she places her hands at the inner crease of each thigh.

Slowly, so slowly, Ari traces Laurel’s outer labia with her thumbs, a single stroke from the top of her mound down. Laurel shivers, and Ari repeats it, noting the muscles in Laurel’s thighs relaxing just a little, opening her up a little more. 

When Ari is sure Laurel isn’t going to shrink away, or combust, she parts Laurel’s inner labia with her thumbs, just to expose a little more. A soft puff of air from Ari’s lips has Laurel whining and smacking a hand over her own mouth. 

Ari smiles in encouragement. Sits up on her knees to lean forward and pull that hand away. Kisses Laurel deep and slow until Laurel is sighing against her, Ari’s knee pressed to Laurel’s now-bare pussy. Laurel grinds against it, and wetness blooms against Ari’s skin. Ari grins into the kiss and snakes a hand down Laurel’s stomach until she’s cupping Laurel, fingertips trailing through Laurel’s wetness with barely there touches.

“More!” Laurel gasps against Ari’s lips. “More, p-please—” 

“Of course, baby.”

Two fingers, one each side of Laurel’s inner labia, sweep down and then up. Laurel bucks and whines against Ari’s hand, a beautiful song that encourages her to keep going. Ari deepens their kiss as her thumb comes up to brush against Laurel’s clit, coaxing it out of its hide. 

More wetness blooms against her hand. A single digit plays at Laurel’s hole but doesn’t press before moving back up. Ari’s thumb now has a steady rhythm against Laurel’s clit, matching the gentle rocking of Laurel’s hips, bringing her closer and closer to the edge. When Laurel rips her head to the side to gasp in pleasure, Ari runs her tongue along Laurel’s jaw, down to the hollow of her throat where she begins to suckle. A second hand ventures up to brush Laurel’s exposed ribs, slipping under her bra to roll her nipple. 

“Is this okay?” Ari gasps into Laurel’s neck. “Do you want more than this?” Laurel shakes her head. Nods it. Blushes. “Speak to me.”

“I’m—I want—more, I want to try more.” 

“My fingers?” 

“Yes.” 

“Have you used your own fingers before? Have you had anything inside of you?”

Laurel nods, and along with it, the heady flush of her face deepens. Warmth blooms in Ari’s chest and well below at the thought of Laurel’s hands slipping beneath her sheets late at night and finding herself, letting out these same soft moans into her hand or pillow to stifle the noises, back arching as waves of pleasure rock through her body. 

And with those thoughts, Ari can’t help but press a little further, her lips crooking as she slips a hand underneath Laurel’s back to unclasp her bra. “Mmmm like what?” 

“My hand—my fingers. I’ve used them.” 

“What did you think about?” 

The bra is peeled back, and as Ari waits for her answer, she gives a slow, wet kiss to the exposed skin of Laurel’s chest, just shy of her nipple. It kills any progress Laurel has made toward answering her, but Ari doesn’t much mind; she so loves watching the expressions that cross Laurel’s face when she’s wrought with pleasure. 

Especially the ones made as she closes her mouth over one peak, and Laurel cries out into the night. Ari’s hot tongue slips over Laurel’s nipple, circling with precision. Laurel’s whimpers get caught in her throat, reverberate through her chest, and though Ari knows she doesn’t  _ really _ need to do more, she does anyway.

With a poorly hidden, wicked grin Ari catches the hardened little nub between her teeth, and  _ pulls _ . 

“YOU!” Laurel gasps out, voice cracking under the strain. “I—I thought of you.” 

Ari releases Laurel’s nipple and slides back up her body; kisses her soft, tender, slow. 

“I’ll be good to you,” Ari murmurs. “You can tell me to do anything you want, and if you don’t like it, we’ll stop right away.” She settles back on her feet. A soft kiss to the inside of Laurel’s knee, a scrape of teeth. “I promise.” 

Despite her swallow, Laurel’s nod of consent comes without hesitation, and so Ari returns to her work.

Ari presses a finger to Laurel’s entrance, circling a few times before dipping in, just to the first knuckle, so careful and aware of every breath and movement. Laurel stills beneath Ari, but her eyes are still clouded over with lust, lips still parted; she’s waiting for more, practically begging for it. 

And so Ari slips her finger in a little further, to the second knuckle, and then crooks it a little to earn herself a soft whine from deep within Laurel’s chest. Then, a little further still, and she works that single finger until she feels Laurel loosen around her just a little more.

“Are you ready for two?” Ari asks.

Laurel nods, the movement enthusiastic and hurried, and along with it comes such a delicious little noise, one she doesn’t try to hide or stifle and which sends warmth right to Ari’s abdomen, where it settles low in her belly along with every other sound Laurel has made since they began.

Carefully, Ari slips in a second, pumps them slowly, then begins to stretch and curl. Scissors them apart. Beckons her forward.

“You’re doing so well,” Ari smiles against the inside of Laurel’s knee. “I love all your pretty noises. Your warmth around my fingers.”

Ari twists her hand so that her thumb can circle Laurel’s clit, tracing circles over the sensitive nub. Laurel is so quickly becoming a mess beneath her, writhing and blushing under her ministrations and praise. The most wondrous sight in the universe, more so than any bright star or twinkling constellation, and all because of her.

And just when Laurel is about to crash, she shoves Ari’s hand away with a gasp, knees almost snapping shut around Ari’s head.

“S-sorry!” Laurel rasps out. “It’s just—it’s a lot—and—I— _ IwantyourmouthonmewhenIcome _ .”

Ari’s eyebrow lifts, but rather than repeating herself, Laurel just gives her a meaningful look. As much as Ari loves to hear Laurel asking for what she wants, it hardly seems fair now, not with Laurel’s heaving chest and shaking limbs and flushed skin, and Ari’s fingers still wet from her arousal.

No; playing that game wouldn’t do anyone any favours. And so what she says instead is, “Are you sure?”

Laurel nods, sure and certain enough for Ari to give her a bright smile in return and to crawl up her body to kiss her. More long, deep strokes of her tongue. More gentle nips of Laurel’s bottom lip. 

Until Ari is moving down her love’s body once more, with open mouthed kisses and soft blows against wet skin. Dancing fingertips. Little nips and pulls. Laurel is huffing and groaning and squirming beneath her, and it’s clear Laurel wants more, but Ari is having far too much fun to give in just yet.

Ari stops just below Laurel’s belly button and swirls her tongue in the dip of it. Laurel’s jerking hips are held in place by Ari’s hands, and once their eyes lock, Ari dips a little further down and sweeps her tongue right along Laurel’s slit.

Ari could have sworn Laurel had come from that alone, just by the sharp inhale, the bow of her hips, the way her thighs smash together around Ari’s head. But so quickly Laurel is flushing and stuttering out apologises, and Ari is grinning and doing it again, cutting her off.

Laurel’s cry echoes around the room, her legs melting and releasing Ari’s head, enough for Ari to bring her hands up and part Laurel’s folds, allowing her more access to lap at Laurel’s arousal with her tongue.

Ari lets out a pleased little hum. “You taste just how I thought you would.”

Laurel’s cheeks burn red. “W-which is?”

“Would you like to try?”

Laurel nods her head hurriedly. Ari kisses Laurel’s swollen bud and slips a finger in once more, watching Laurel intently for her reactions. “I’ll let you taste later. Do you want a second finger at the same time as my mouth? Will that be too much?” 

“I don’t know—maybe?” 

“I’ll try it. Tell me.”

Ari slips the second in while her lips work to suckle Laurel’s clit. Laurel whimpers against her, a fresh wave of arousal that hits Ari’s tongue and causes her to moan; neither of them have to say anything to know that it was a success. 

With her free hand, Ari takes one of Laurel’s and places it in her hair. When Laurel gives her a dazed frown, Ari grins. 

“I’d like you to pull my hair while I eat you out,” Ari explains. “But also, if I’m doing too much or not enough, you can move me wherever you want. Like your own personal slave.”

“You’re not—I’m—”

“I’d feel better if you did pull and push when you needed it. I can’t always read how you’re feeling, and in about thirty seconds, you’re not going to be able to use your words.” 

Laurel rolls her eyes. “That’s a bit presumptuous.” 

Ari shrugs, but the look in her eye remains. “Are you ready?”

Laurel exhales, nods, and Ari dives back in.

Immediately, she sucks Laurel’s clit between her teeth, and Laurel lets out her loudest cry yet. Laurel’s fingers tighten in Ari’s hair, holding her in place as Laurel’s hips grind up into the pain. Ari moves with her, fingers setting a gentle pace to offset the brutal assault of Ari’s tongue and lips. 

And soon enough, Laurel’s eyes are rolling. She’s shuddering and shaking, soft little whines filling the air around them in a beautiful song. Ari decides that a single finger pressed deeper is more effective than the two with shallow movements, though with how fast Laurel is stretching around her fingers, Ari wonders if Laurel might someday take more than two. Many more.

And within thirty seconds, as predicted, Laurel can no longer answer Ari’s questions, and in another ten Laurel is coming against Ari’s mouth, the assault on her clit easing to soft movements, a second finger slipping back in to stretch her pulsing pussy to ease her along the waves of her orgasm.

*

Laurel’s body sags into the mattress, lids heavy, fingers still buried in Ari’s hair. The blonde feels a light tug against it, but instead of moving up she pulls her fingers out and licks a line up Laurel’s seam to clean the remaining arousal. Laurel’s thighs quiver, as though they want to close around Ari’s head and stop her, but no energy remains to do so. 

Another tug of hair. Ari follows it this time, kissing up Laurel’s body until their eyes meet. 

“How was that?” Ari asks. Her voice is breathless, eyes alight as she searches Laurel’s gaze for answers. “Did you like it? We can try something different next time, less tongue or more fingers or—”

Laurel silences her with a kiss. Ari’s surprised noise fades into a soft sigh as Laurel’s tongue sweeps into her mouth, as though trying to find every taste of herself. And then it’s Ari’s turn to shudder against Laurel, for her hips to rock against Laurel’s thigh as it comes up to wedge between her own. Laurel pulls back, and now Ari’s lids are as hooded as hers, and Ari is grinning her dopey in-love grin.

“I have an idea,” Ari murmurs. 

“Mmmm?” 

Guiding Laurel’s body with her hands, Ari flips them so that Laurel is straddling her thighs, hair falling in a mess about her shoulders. Transfixed, Ari lifts a hand to play with the ends, and is rewarded with the shiver of Laurel’s body.

“I want to be down here when I see you come this time,” Ari murmurs. Her hand falls away from Laurel’s hair and to Laurel’s thighs, where her fingertips begin tracing absentminded constellations.

The slack of Laurel’s jaw is almost as comical as it is endearing. “Again?”

“Mmhmm. You should come as many times as it takes for you to pass out.”

Laurel wets her lips uncertainly before she speaks, and her cheeks turn Ari’s favourite shade of scarlett. “What about you?”

“I’ll come too. I want to be one of those super lovey couples that do everything together.”

The roll of Laurel’s eyes does nothing to deter her. Ari maneuvers Laurel’s hips until she’s straddling Ari’s bare thigh with her wet heat. The delight in Laurel’s eyes comes alive, as much there as it is in her fingertips as they find the buttons of Ari’s blouse and begin popping them open. 

As Laurel spreads each side apart to reveal the lace beneath, she lets out a soft  _ oh _ of surprise and reverence. Ari fiddles with the pendant of her necklace, watching each thought cross Laurel’s mind.

“What are you thinking?” Ari murmurs. 

“I…want to call you my lover.” 

“You can call me whatever you want, so long as you mean it.” 

A hand to Laurel’s hip. A light squeeze. And then Laurel begins to move, a familiar dance except she has never been on top, she’s never been bare against Ari’s thigh. Laurel builds a steady rhythm, rocking against Ari’s thigh as Ari watches from below, transfixed by Laurel’s movements, the way her bottom lip rolls, the flutter of her lashes, how her hair sways about her body. 

Ari’s hand slides down her own chest until she finds herself, playing and pressing in every way she likes. She lets out a soft moan and Laurel’s eyes fly open, eyes dropping to find where Ari’s hand had wondered. Laurel flushes, but it’s brief, quickly vanishing to make way for a new boldness as she takes hold of Ari’s wrist.

“Show me,” Laurel murmurs. “Show me what to do.”

So Ari does. She turns their hands so that Laurel’s is underneath being guided. She presses two of Laurel’s fingers to her entrance, where they slip in with ease, and a little more of a press has them in straight to the second knuckle. 

Laurel’s hips jerk and slow a little, caught in the new sensation. 

“Curl them,” Ari rasps out. 

Laurel nods, tentatively curls them against Ari’s walls, and Ari clenches around her. Laurel blinks in surprise and repeats the action, and Ari bucks weakly, lifting them both. Ari tugs Laurel’s lips back down, tongue sweeping into Laurel’s mouth as her other hand keeps steady, letting Laurel repeat the curling action.

As they kiss and explore, and Laurel continues to gently rock against Ari’s thigh, Ari moves her to add a third finger. Laurel does so without breaking their kiss, pressing it in beside the first and second and repeating the same motions she had been taught. Ari whines against Laurel’s lips, having to break the kiss, and the smile that twists Laurel’s lips is both victorious and enraptured. 

Then, she does something new, spreads one from two and scissors, gently stretching Ari apart. Ari rocks and gasps, and Laurel watches in fascination. 

“Can you take more?” She asks, all intrigue and wonder. 

Ari gives her a lazy grin and says, “I’ve never tried. But maybe we will later.”

Laurel nods enthusiastically, and a new wetness along Ari’s thigh says she likes the idea very much, though Ari has a feeling Laurel likes it more for herself. Their lips meet again, and Ari releases Laurel’s hand to circle her own clit. 

Against Laurel’s lips, Ari murmurs, “Touch yourself.” __

Laurel nods, hand going to her own clit, and there’s a bit of a falter in her movements as she struggles to do so many things at once but the enthusiasm, the willingness to please, it all shines through, and before long she’s gasping again, whining, hips shunting against Ari’s thigh. 

Laurel comes first, breathing into Ari’s neck, her fingers stalling inside of Ari as she rides out the waves. Ari strokes her back, murmurs into her ear, until she comes down.

Laurel flushes as she sits up, eyes wide. And she’s grinning, with a quiet laugh, and then she’s shuffling down. “Will you show me?” She asks. 

Ari takes a few seconds to realise, and then— 

“You want to—?” 

“Please. You—you did it for me, and it felt so good. I want to hear you make those noises, too.”

Laurel settles between Ari’s legs, her hair falling about her shoulders, tickling at the skin there. Ari shudders, then nods, reaches for a pillow and puts it under her hips for the angle. 

Laurel takes her hand and places it in her hair. Ari lets out a soft moan, goes a little cross-eyed for a second. 

“I like direct contact,” Ari tells her. “No teeth, just lips and tongue, right on my clit, like you’re sucking a straw.” Laurel nods, waiting for more. “I don’t really like penetration at the same time, though. But…you know I do like getting scratched.” Laurel grins, a wicked glint to it. Ari laughs _.  _ “I’ll tell you if I want you to move.” 

Laurel nods, then licks her lips, and takes her first dip. 

Ari watches Laurel’s face as she contemplates the taste, sees her cheeks flush a little a moment before she goes back in, repeating the sweeping action Ari used with her own tongue. Ari swallows back a whine at the sound of Laurel lapping up her arousal with enthusiasm, and when Laurel’s eyes dart up to look at her, she nods in encouragement. 

Laurel spreads Ari apart, observing her, looking her over, learning everything she can. Another lick, Laurel’s tongue pressing a little into Ari’s hole before moving right up and flicking against her clit. 

Ari lets out a strangled cry, and at the unfamiliar volume and pitch Laurel sits up in alarm. Ari is quick to move, shoving her head back down with a groan of, “ _ Keep going! _ ”

Laurel laughs, repeats the action, and then with a gentle nudge of Ari’s hand her lips find Ari’s clit and she kisses, then sucks it gently, then a little more. Ari’s hand has fallen loose from her hair, she’s white knuckling the sheets, chest rising and falling rapidly. 

_ She’s close, so fucking close _ —

And then Laurel’s fingernails scrape, so innocently—or maybe not—down Ari’s stomach, and she’s coming against Laurel’s face, writhing and pressing and riding as she quietly gasps and shakes. Laurel watches her in fascination, until she comes down, and Laurel sits up and pushes her hair from her face.

Ari’s head drops to the side, and she holds out a hand and tugs Laurel forward, nuzzles into her neck and kisses there. “Thank you.” 

“Oh—oh, you’re welcome?” 

“I love you.” 

She feels Laurel warm against her. The world is silent, only heartbeats and breaths, and then—

“I love you, too.” 

It’s so quiet. So much quicker than Ari expected, if at all. A gentle whisper that shoots straight to Ari’s heart, and she barely remembers to nod to show she heard it. Their foreheads meet. Their eyes close. Ari repeats the words to Laurel, under her breath, like a mantra, and with each one Laurel gives a small sound to show she heard. 

Time passes. Neither of them pull away. Laurel’s fingertips trace patterns on the inside of Ari’s thigh ( _ orion _ , Ari realises, with another kiss to Laurel’s forehead). It’s clear neither of them plan on sleeping, or pulling away, or giving up the time they have.

And soon enough Laurel’s touch does go from idle patterns to intentional movements, slipping up Ari’s skin until it finds the thatch of blonde curls nestled between her legs. Ari releases a soft  _ oh _ , and is almost terrified to see one of her own mischievous grins plastered on Laurel’s features.

“Already?” Ari asks, and it’s not nearly as exasperated as she feels (which isn’t at all).

“Already,” Laurel answers, her fingers pressing clumsily into Ari’s heat.

And though Ari could spend forever getting fucked by Laurel’s fingers, her mouth, her thigh, and anything Laurel would allow—she doesn’t want to. Not right now. Right now, she wants to hear Laurel screaming, wants to see the soul leave her body on repeat until the sun rises, or until they fall asleep, or the universe implodes, or whichever comes last.

So instead of pushing into Laurel’s touch, she cups Laurel’s head, tilts it back with a gentle tug of hair and says, “How do you feel about sitting on my face?”


	6. Romeverse (Laurel/Ariana, Laurel/Ariana/Lucio)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in a Rome-inspired universe, Laurel and Ariana are the whores of Emperor Lucio. Laurel has weird complicated feelings about both Lucio and Ariana. Ariana is not allowed to be kissed and has weird feelings about Laurel. So, naturally, they kiss about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rome AU was meant to be entirely horny but apparently we're unable to do things without Laurel and Ari having feelings. The important things to know is that Lucio has forbidden Ari from kissing anyone, even him, and she has thus never been kissed. Laurel has been showing her the 'ropes' so to speak.

Dusk settles on the city, banishing the last of the sun’s rays in preparation for the night. Streaks of saffron, cinnamon, coral, all stretched out across the sky. The moon, near lost in the haze of colours. The first promise of stars, near hidden in the heavens but still promising to join her. To love her. To protect her.

It should have enraptured her, should have pulled her like it did every evening the sky was clear. For ten hours, the stars and the moon were together. Had she any choice, she might never have slept. Might never have done anything in those hours except gazed and wished and ached.

“Tilt your head.”

A warm trickle of water makes its way down her neck, and soon after the feel of practised fingertips working the soap by her ears into a lather. She tucks her knees a little closer to her chest, and once those fingertips move down the length of her hair, she settles her head on top of them.

“It is a wonder any of these tangles get worked out of your hair,” Laurel tells her, and with a sigh that is perhaps too soft for her words. Ariana’s lips twitch, but enough of her hair has fallen over her shoulders to block the bold look from the older girl.

“I could always do it on my own,” she answers. “Or cut it. Would that suffice?”

Another sigh, this one perhaps less soft than before, a kind sort of irreverence.  _ Of course there will be no cutting. Of course she will never have to tackle alone, all the knots and kinks in her hair after so many hours of fucking and being choked to within an inch of her life. _

Silence settles once more. The pieces of lavender scattered in the bath float amongst the oils on the surface. Ariana takes a sprig between her fingertips, ignoring the ache in her heart that tries to pull her gaze back to the darkening sky and twinkling stars.

_ Perhaps it would be a smarter decision not to dwell. _

Lulled by the feel of Laurel’s fingertips pulling through her hair, the sounds of soft breaths so close to her back, she dwells anyway, caught between the ache of home and the ever-louder roar that was her body and soul trying to survive. 

“Can I give you a secret?” Ariana asks after a while, so quiet that her voice is almost overrun by the sounds of shifting water as Laurel pulls more of her hair from the depths of the bath.

A moment passes before Laurel answers, her movements never ceasing. “Of course.”

“I have family,” Ariana murmurs. “A twin brother. In the village I live in--” She closes her eyes and swallows the lump in her throat. “ _ Lived  _ in.”

Laurel’s fingers slip from her hair and come to press behind her ears, guiding her to tilt her head back. Ariana’s eyes sting, just for a moment, at the unreadable expression she finds when she stares up. Perhaps she had expected softness, kindness, an apology for something Laurel had no part in.

Laurel begins to clear the soap from her hair with small amounts of water, cupped in her hand and brought to the hairline to trickle down. The movement is methodical, careful, with her other hand cupped beneath to support the weight of the younger girl’s head.

Only once the suds are cleared does she speak, a kindness curving her lips as they part. “Do you wish to speak of him?” She asks, guiding Ariana to sit up once more.

Water sloshes behind her as Laurel gathers her hair from the water, lifting it to ring out the last of the soap. Ariana gathers her knees to her chest again, though perhaps not so tightly this time. The first few stars that form  _ Perseus  _ are beginning to show themselves on the horizon.

“I’m not sure,” she answers. It’s truthful, but she certainly doesn’t like it. “I want to imagine him. I am worried that one day, I will have been here so long that I won’t remember his face.”

“Describe it to me.”

And so she does. As Laurel works the conditioning balm through her hair, she pulls her brother’s image to mind and describes in whispers everything she can see. The exact shade of sapphire that made his eyes. The dip of his chin, and the matching one on his left cheek whenever he smiled. The wriggle of his brow whenever their father said something they would never dare laugh at aloud. How his laugh had been irritating and loud when she had been young, and then stupid when she had been a little older, and her favourite sound in the world when she realised she might never hear it again.

She isn’t quite sure when she fell silent, or how long Laurel’s hands have been smoothing the crown of her head instead of washing like she was meant to. The comfort of it is perhaps why she had spoken so long. What had helped pull up every memory she had of Elias so she could commit them again.

“You’ve never spoken of him before,” Laurel speaks, and there is something of a question there.

“I was afraid. That something would happen to him, if I wasn’t enough for…this. If I ever displeased our Master.”

“Then why now?”

The water shifts as Ariana turns, slapping gently against her arms, the bare skin of her chest.

“Because you asked me once, if I trusted you.” Her fingertips curl around the lip of the tub as she finds Laurel’s gaze. “And I didn’t then. I shouldn’t have. But I think…I think I do now.”

Her eyes flutter, just for a single vulnerable moment, to Laurel’s lips. Finds herself, for that same vulnerable moment, wondering if Laurel would ever dare want to kiss her back. If she’s the only one who wants more. She can’t be, can she? Laurel had kissed  _ her.  _ Had brushed their lips even with their Master watching.

_ I mean something to her. I must. Why else would she kiss me? Tend to me? Guide me when our Master refuses? _

But perhaps she is being too hopeful, too naïve. She sees Laurel’s lips flatten in disapproval, hears the soft sigh as Ariana’s own lips part in hope. 

No, that doesn’t seem like anyone who would ever want to kiss her.

_ She would never betray our Master in that way. Not with how she looks at him.  _

“Ariana,” Laurel murmurs. She takes a moment to set the comb to the side, her eyes carefully placed anywhere else. “If this is about earlier—”

“It’s not because I trust you that I want to kiss you.”

Laurel exhales. Ariana takes the moment to slip a little closer, all wide and eager eyes, perhaps every bit the fawn she was made out to be when she first arrived. There is a flush to her cheeks, a roar in her veins, as she waits for Laurel to speak. Or to simply push her away.

_ Please, anything but that. _

A drop of water slips from her hairline, finding the path along her brow and nose until it settles on her lips. Laurel moves as though in a trance, her thumb catching it with a barely-there graze of skin. Ariana’s eyes follow the movement and then shift back to Laurel, eyebrows drawn together.

_ Please. Please say yes. Please do something. I might break if I don’t get to kiss you. _

And then Laurel gives a tiny, barely-there nod.

Without breathing still, Ariana slides closer. So slow, so careful, trying to ignore the grip on her heart that was waiting already for Laurel to change her mind. Their skin slips beneath the water until her legs are around Laurel’s hips, water sloshing and echoing in the empty chamber.

Laurel’s other hand comes up to her neck, holding her in place with a barely-there touch. Ariana can only wait with her breath in her throat as Laurel leans in, so slow. Watching her. Checking her response.

_ So close. Please, please don’t pull away— _

And then their lips are brushing, and it is as soft as earlier that day, enough to make her heart seize in her chest and her veins to still their roaring. Her entire body follows, as though too scared to move, as though it might all stop just like their first kiss, and then it wouldn’t be any kiss at all.

Soundless, with such care, Laurel’s lips close around her bottom and begin suckling softly. She catches a sigh in her throat and wrestles it down, so still,  _ don’t breathe _ , her lashes fluttering against her cheekbones.

And then Laurel is pressing  _ more _ , shifting her in the water until Ariana’s chest is pressed against hers, skin slipping as she gasps. She flushes at the idea that Laurel might be able to feel how hard her heart is racing, feel how tight her nipples are and tease her for it like their Master would. Or, that she might think her foolish for reacting to something so simple and shallow as being  _ kissed _ .

Laurel pulls back too soon. Their eyes open to meet, and though she can see nothing but reassurance in Laurel’s, Ariana can’t keep the horror out of her own. A thudding drum echoes in the cavity of her chest, battling with short breaths that threaten to take over her body. Laurel’s heated face, the hand curled into Ariana’s neck, they do nothing to soothe her.

Until a thumb traces the flush of her cheekbone, tender and steady. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she exhales.

“He will never know,” Laurel promises her. Senses her fear. “I won’t let him.”

Ariana swallows again, gives something she dearly hopes is a nod, and then leans back in.

It’s wet. She doesn’t know if it’s meant to be. Doesn’t know where to put her hands. Just knows she wants more of that feeling, that tightness in her throat and that fire in her chest. A hand around her wrist guides it to Laurel’s waist; a hand at her other takes it to Laurel’s hair, so that she can hold her in the same way she is already being held.

She decides she likes this very much.  _ Kissing _ .

A sigh breaks in her chest but comes out as a whine. Laurel pulls back just enough to  _ sshhh _ her, swollen lips against her chin as she speaks.

“They’ll hear.”

The words, the action, make parts of her she’s never allowed to touch, ache.

Laurel waits for her to nod her understanding before kissing her chin again. Laurel’s hands slip down wet skin to find her hips, gently guiding her back through the water until her legs are no longer tangled around Laurel’s hips. At her wide eyes, her parted lips, her drawn eyebrows, Laurel laughs, and it is not unkind.

“I need to finish your hair,” she explains, before the last of her touch slips away.

Ignoring the fluttering in her stomach that wants to ask for so much more,  _ just a few moments longer,  _ Ariana nods and turns in the water. Hushed voices float in from the corridor. The colours of dusk have vanished, and  _ Perseus  _ is too high to be seen in full.

She sighs and rests her head on her knees, a hand tucked up to trace her lips while she waits for Laurel to finish.


End file.
